


Richie's an Odd One

by earthkidsareweird



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King, Odd Thomas (2013), Odd Thomas Series - Dean Koontz
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Canonical Character Death, Eddie Kaspbrak Has a Bad Time, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak Needs A Hug, Eddie Kaspbrak is a Good Significant Other, Established Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Fluff and Humor, Henry Bowers Being an Asshole, Hurt Richie Tozier, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Richie Tozier Has ADHD, Richie Tozier Has Powers, Richie Tozier is a Mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:34:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 31
Words: 46,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24975421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earthkidsareweird/pseuds/earthkidsareweird
Summary: “What?” I kissed his forehead. “Anything for you.”Eds patted my cheek, nudging me off the bed. “Stop calling me Eds.”I scooted off the edge grabbing my glasses along the way. Put them back on, stood around there about as awkward as ever in just glasses and boxers. I sighed, shaking my head while looking down at him. “Look, Eds, I can do anything for you, anything but that.”I should’ve never left. Eds was right. We should’ve either stayed or left together forever.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Kudos: 18





	1. Prologue: August 15, 1989

**Author's Note:**

> I just-I just really love Odd Thomas and I'm reading the book for the first time but am digging the movie more. 
> 
> Anyway, shout out to [ this post on Tumblr ](https://elder-schraderham.tumblr.com/post/621580674104786944/odd-thomas-style-ending-but-its-reddie-but) that inspired this although it probably has some spoilers. Thanks for the inspiration! Although, I decided to go more with an abridged Odd Thomas plot.
> 
> **Just an overall TW this deals with a mass shooting near the end**

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fortune-telling machine tells Richie and Eddie, **You are destined to be together forever.**

# Prologue

### August 15, 1989

There are a lot of places this story could start and a lot of other places people would expect this story to start. But I’m telling it so fuck you and your opinions.

My name is Richie Tozier and my life is pretty unusual. I bet you knew that if you’re reading this so I’m just going to get into things. Since I’m running this narrative I’m going to start this narrative with an iconic as fuck moment during the 1989 Annual Derry Canal Days Festival.

Derry Canal Day Festivals in Derry, Maine that is. There are probably better canals and better Derrys out in the world, but none of them are the Derry I called home for twenty years. The problem with my Derry though is it’s full of big bad things always happen there but people are always out and about pretending none of this shit ever happens. It’s probably because the dead don’t speak to them. It took me too long to figure out that if the dead speak to me then I should sure as hell do something about it.

Took an Edward Kaspbrak at the 1989 Annual Derry Canal Days Festival to figure that out. Although he always felt as if _Edward_ made him sound like an old man so he told everybody to call him _Eds_. 

We’d been walking around the festivities or whatever the heck you wanted to call the haphazard stands of fried food thrown together with some carnival rides I’m pretty sure killed twenty or more people in the past.

Cotton candy made me feel ready to puke. Its scent wafted through the air while I watched an actual person puke into a trashcan after they stumbled off that gravitron ride. I tried to remember his name but could only come up with _New Kid_ so I said nothing while he continued to puke his dizziness out into the garbage can.

“Richie!”

I looked to see Eds walking over to me with two cones of cotton candy. He struggled to eat one while attempting to hand off the other pink puff in my direction. But I shook my head.

Eds paused, cotton candy still stretched out toward me while some melted on his face. “What the hell? Why’d you ask me for cotton candy then?”

“Ok, but hear me out, I didn’t.” Really, no idea what he was talking about. As far as I could remember up until he left saying he needed to get food and cotton candy was not food it was cloud sugar, he kept asking me if there were any ghosts around while he pointed around each and every possible corner at the festival. “Also, you got some. . .” I signaled to my face and he right away his cheeks turned tomato red but used his shirt sleeve to wipe it away. “Perfect! You’re no longer a disgrace, Eds.”

“Shit! Stop calling me Eds!”

“Then what would I call you? It’s your name, I can’t just shout out KID or NO NAME whenever I see you.”

He stopped eating the cotton candy and ended it tossing it. “Eddie, you can call me _Eddie_ because that’s my name, it’s Eddie!” Each time he said his own name, he punctuated each letter with his hands.

I shrugged. “If you insist.” 

Already, I walked away from him and the cotton candy and the vomit, which forced Eds to sprint walk after me because of his short legs. If I walked any faster, he’d whip out his inhaler blaming the next asthma attack on me while I stood around wondering if asthma really was a thing. It seemed like a conspiracy to me, to be honest. Up ahead there were games to play, those look more like sheds. You could win “I love Derry” hats but I hated Derry or you could win little plushies. 

I glanced around at some of them. We walked without really talking anymore. No more Eds going _Ghost?_ while pointing at some random spot like ghosts were everywhere. I’m sure there are ghosts everywhere but it’s not like I see them at every single location in the entire world.

There were the occasional usual suspects hanging around Derry though. But I hadn’t seen any throughout the night. Guess ghosts don’t like fun. And to think, the canal usually served as a hotspot for some kid named Eddie Cochran often sat by the canals. He looked like the definition of sadness if I were to open up a dictionary to see his photograph pasted there. 

Ghosts never spoke. They wandered this world without explanation but I could help them move on but they needed to choose that. Eddie Cochran though. The police station still had his missing persons fliers poster up. That was it. He’d go down as one of those unsolved mysteries everybody whispered about under their blankets at sleepovers.

 _What ever happened to Eddie Cochran?_ The world may never know.

The part that sucks is that I’ll never even know. There are times I catch glimpses of other lives, death upon death but they gotta share the past with me. Eddie Cochran never did such a thing. I’d only see those final moments in intense glimpses. Therefore, this means, I may be one of the only people in this world that knows for sure he’s dead but no idea how or why or who killed the kid. 

“What? What is it? Is it a ghost? It’s a ghost, isn’t it?”

Didn’t even realize Eds stopped walking. “Huh?” I bumped into him still making my casual way through the festival. “Wait, what? No. No. . .no ghost.”

At first, I just got a _pft_ from Eds followed by an eye roll before he decided we were in fact having a conversation that I failed to partake in. “Ok then so you’re not listening to me?”

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that.” I cupped my one ear. “What did you just say?”

Eds disengaged with a casual giant back step. He pointed over at one of those weird fortune teller machines. It was all plugged in at a corner. “I got a good question for Zoltar over there.”

“ZOLTAR!” I shouted attempting to form a Z with my hands.

“What-What was that?” retorted Eds.

“I don’t know. Just felt necessary.” 

Eds replied with a crooked smile and continued his whole backed thing as he moved toward Zoltar.

I shrugged it off. Nothing could embarrass me, but to be honest, that was something I lied about to myself all of the time. Unlike Eds though, people couldn’t see my rampant embarrassment. Unless they over thought every single time I fixed my glasses, I pushed them up the bridge of my nose walking over to Zoltar while a couple stood before us popping a quarter into the machine. I dug into my pocket thinking about how I was about to break into my arcade funds no thanks to Eds here. He better pay up next time around. I pretended to just have one quarter. I showed it to him smirking.

“So. . .what are we asking? Who’s got a bigger dick?”

Eds shook his head.

I palmed the quarter turning around to face Zoltar. “Yeah, wouldn’t make sense. We know the answer to that question already.”

“I’m asking the question.”

But I sneered at him. “My quarter, my question. Get your own dang quarter.”

Ahead the couple stood there, a woman was there with a man and she asked, “Dear Zoltar, please tell us.” She touched the back of the man’s hand who was standing with her. “Will Johnny and I have a long and happy marriage?” She poked the answer button.

Some reason both Eds and I shut up watching real close as Zoltar jerked back and forth, stuck on the same gears as any other fortune teller machine across the grand United States of America. Zoltar huffed struggling to spit out a card. 

The woman took it chuckling until she read it out loud, “The fool leaps from the cliff, but the winter lake below is frozen.”

Guess she wasn’t into that answer cause she looked up at so-called Johnny all teary-eyed. He shook his head handing her another quarter. She plopped it in and glared at Zoltar.

Though that time around, so-called Johnny took one for the team by asking the same question, “Will we have a long and happy marriage?”

Zoltar stuttered that time around, his movements didn’t jerk into motion then he spat out another card. The woman took it again, closing her eyes attempting another smile. Made me wonder how long the two stood around begging for a happy marriage.

“Ok,” whispered the woman. She looked at the car and read it out loud. “The orchard of blighted trees produces poisonous fruit.”

Again with the teary eyes but when so-called Johnny handed her another quarter, I blurted the exact thoughts in my mind, “Get a divorce already!”

The woman whipped around. “We’re engaged!”

“Then break the engagement!” I replied. Eds smacked his face and looked over at some other part of the festival while the woman gawked at me. “What? Zoltar said it first.”

“Riiiiichie!” grumbled Eds nudging my side with his elbow.

Rather than ask again, the couple left, which meant we scooted up even with Eds still trying to look away from me. I held up my quarter. Somewhere one of the games played _The Chain_ by Fleetwood Mac. So much _If you don’t love me now, you will never love me again. I can still hear you saying, you would never break the chain_ in one place. Everybody always wanted to talk about love. Still Eds looked around the festival at everything, but me, like there was actually something more interesting than _me_.

“Pst _Eddie_ , my love.”

That got his attention real fast. “Richie! Shush!”

“Jeez, first you tell me not to call you Eds and now not Eddie? Ok, Edward.”

“Shut up! You know that’s not the problem there!”

I pushed my glasses up the bridge of my nose again and dropped a quarter into the machine. Before Eds could make any further comment, I punched the answer button. Zoltar started to move. His hand jerked around his crystal ball. Eds gawked at me then at the machine then back at me again. All while Zoltar did his thing.

“What the hell? You didn’t even say your question!” protested Eds.

I pointed at my head as the little card spit out. “Yeah, I did. Said it right here.”

“That’s not how it works.”

I took the card before him keeping it face down. “Yeah, pretty sure it is. If I say it out loud then it won’t come true.”

“What’d you ask?” Eds stood on his toes in an attempt to look at the card after I flipped it over. I kept quiet a little longer than I wanted. “Richie? Come on, what the fuck did you ask?”

I snapped my attention to him, I moved too fast and my eyes were all big and wide. One more time, I pushed my glasses up while Eds stared at me mouthing _what_. “See for yourself,” I replied meaning like see for yourself on what I asked as I held it up for him to look at yet still I read it out loud, “You are destined to be together forever.”

Eds stood there staring at it. “Shut up, no way. The fuck you ask about, Richie?”

“I think you can take one hell of a good guess at what.”

Then like I didn’t do a good enough job, Eds took it from me reading it out loud, at just a higher more panicked pitch than me. “You are destined to be together forever.” He looked up. Lucky him, he doesn’t have glasses for a nervous twitch. But he did start wheezing with his asthma working up whenever he got all nervous or anxious or existed. He kept squinting at me holding the card up while looking at it the whole time. “You’re an odd one, Richie Tozier. You know that, right?”

I went to pluck the card from his hand, but he flailed away from me. “Comes with seeing ghosts.” I went for a quick jab of a grab, but Eds took a whole step back avoiding me. He rose up onto his toes again while holding the card up like it was out of reach. I only smirked. 

“Oh, no, you don’t, this is mine. So I can remember.”

“Remember what?”

Eds snorted. He turned the card around again so I could see the front of it. **You are destined to be together forever.** Some other couple waited behind us so Eds kept on backing up. He slipped the card into his back pocket then left me alone there. I got stuck hanging in some sort of unreality staring at him. Eds already turned around, he walked forward instead of backward, about to take off until I guess he noticed I fell off the edge of the world because he stopped to turn back around and look at me. For some idiotic reason, I waved.

“You coming, odd one?”

“Sorry!” I caught up with him. “I was just trying to figure out what to tell your mom about this. It’s gonna be weird when I’m like hey, Sonia, we have to break up ‘cause it turns out, your son is my soulmate.” I poked his back pocket getting him to leap up, face all tomato red. “At least I have some proof.”

“Shut up, Richie!”

“You shut up!”

Eds shook his head. “I hate you.”

I shrugged and he chuckled. 

We kept on walking past some other carnival games and the festival was about to loop around to where we started, but nothing else of importance happened. While that is the start of this story, it takes place four years after our little Zoltar rendezvous.


	2. July 3 - 1:00 AM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fluff like so much fluff here but also there'll be tragedy.

### 1:00 AM on July 3, 1996

The church was in fact destroyed. The closeness of the violence still reverberated through my bones. I’d been stupid, so stupid to let Fungus Man to spot me long enough to follow me around. Endangering my whole world. Worse. Fingerprints at the church? None. 

I hung the phone back up on its receiver glad Chief Wyatt Porter called Eds rather than my place. Then again, he probably got my answering machine, which told the world: _Either I hate you, I’m at work, or I’m at Eds. If you know me then you know where to contact me._ Fungus Man wrecked the whole church. Flashes of him marching toward the tower sprung up all over again. I could feel the anxiety bouncing around my fingertips like some lightning I could wield into battle. Could’ve used it back there. I kept an ear to the door when we were locked in a whole other room in the church. Across from me was Eds, he leaned into another door about to unlock it and run while I-while I. . .tried to survive.

From the kitchen, Eds yelled, “Who was that?”

I laid back down in Eds bed looking at the framed card promising us **You are destined to be together forever.**

“Just Chief. About the church earlier.” I stayed lying there looking up at the card.

The rest of this story takes place seven years after the Annual 1989 Derry Canal Days Festival and in my twentieth year of life. A final year dedicated to Derry. It seems weird when I think back on life because there are two moments that leap out, well two moments I appreciate leaping out in my mind. The first I told you. The second is this moment right smack in the middle of everything.

Eds popped into the kitchen threshold. He’s got giant yellow rubber gloves on while holding a pan in one hand and a sponge in another. Earlier he brought a basket of food to the church tower. All of it was sandwiches and other things made easy for picnics. Nothing that’d involve a pan. Some soap spittle ended up on the floor by his feet.

“Oh shit! So they found the guy?”

I shook my head. “But he wrecked the church, no evidence though to say it was just him.”

Eds sucked in his lips. He held his pan and sponge a little closer to one another. “Fungus Man or Patrick Hockstetter or whatever you said his name is, what’s he look like again?”

“Ugly.”

“Wow, ok, way to be vague because right now I can only picture you.”

"Wait, I thought you said you saw him. You said you saw him earlier to the cops."

I could hear Eds' eyeroll from where I sat. "I said that to Bowers. While technically a cop, still Bowers."

I sat up in his bed feeling a little embarrassed by the fact Eds is still fully dressed, he’s arm deep in some giant yellow cleaning gloves, and I’m camping out on in blue boxer briefs with purple triangles all over them ‘cause I kept insisting at the store it was for _Rocko’s Modern Life_ while Eds pretended he didn’t even know me. Rather than my usual nervous quirk of mixing my glasses, I ignored them to rub my knees while sitting there feeling the friction light up my skin.

“And you checked his fridge for heads, right?” Eds asked for the second time that day.

“What? No! We’ve been over this. No.”

Eds kept standing there with his soapy sponge and pan. “Ok, but what do you mean by no. No as in there are no heads in this Hockstetter guy’s fridge or no you didn’t check the fridge.”

I tossed my hands up almost hitting the framed card. It was a move I always saw Chief’s wife, Karla. There’d been many arguments back in the day when I ended up moving out of my home, but by _moving_ out, I really mean more along the lines of thrown out. Chief and Karla never could have any kids of their own and I showed up on their doorstep like some Christmas special where you wish upon a star to get a dream child. Although maybe it was more a horror movie because _I_ showed up.

“I. . .no, I wasn’t looking for heads. I told you, I got distracted because there was-there was that whole room of. . .” _Nothing._ Sitting miles and hours away from where I broke into Fungus Man’s place, I could feel it creeping up after me. Like him in the bushes and him running out at me and Eds while up there in the church tower.

The memory felt almost like a trap, I’d open a door to find just _nothing_ yet it stretched on and on as if I were about to traverse through the Derry sewer system. I stepped forward into the nothing while reaching out as if that’d help me detect or better understand something. Hard to tell. I’ve always had a bad habit of doing things without thought. Worse is I also say things that are on my mind. Growing up Eds always told me that I’d be the most boring person to read minds. While everybody bit back on words to say in a situation. My brain’d be there itching to say something, words all bright and sparking around and without fail I always said whatever the fuck I thought up.

Eds was sometimes a fan. Karla was not a fan. Chief accepted it and made an attempt to give me so-called _dad_ talks about watching what I say then after each talk, I felt embarrassed because I’d either fire off some finger guns and leave or say something else ridiculous like _Bitchin’_ , which in turn got a facepalm from Chief.

“You should’ve checked the fridge.” Eds stood there with a pot, didn’t realize he left but he was hanging out there scrubbing it. “That’s where serial killers keep their heads like Jeffrey Dahmer, he ate all those guys and an officer found a head sitting in his fridge.”

“Ok, sounds fake and also sounds like an anecdote.” 

Eds flipped me off with one bright yellow finger before he stepped back into the kitchen.

Jeffrey Dahmer had been one of the files I found. It’d appeared after the _nothing_. Stuck inside all the darkness, time-stretched. I could somehow feel all of its strings going taut and stretched out around me like if I wanted, I could go back and tug at a few to see what happiness and tragedy waited around the corner for me. More accurate than Zoltar but Zoltar was correct. He got Eds and me better than most of the world. A bright light up ahead ‘cause me to shield my vision and turn around only to find I’d gone so far. Not just that but another me stood watching. I waved expecting the other me to wave back like a reflection, it wasn’t a reflection.

I parted ways with my body. I almost toppled away into all those time threads. The lights behind me lit up the whole area behind me letting me so clear that the other me stood at the start of the room.

Standing in two places at once, I realized, I never _really_ told Eds how much I loved him and needed to get back. Needed to get back to me. Needed to get back to Eds to promise him, Zoltar or not, I knew we’d be together forever.

“What other files did he have? Like John Wayne Gacy? That clown man, I think he ate children, too.”

My brain might’ve left us for the room, but it plummeted right back into me sitting there with Eds. I looked up to find Eds washing a knife. Sponge no more in hand, instead he used a hand to slowly work off the soap from a butcher knife. His fingers wrapped tight, he started at the bottom close to the hilt working his way up.

I shook my head. “Um, yeah. Clown Man was up on the shrine with the two others I told you about earlier then-then there were files on like Ed Grier. Some Derry things like the shooting at The Black Spot and the people who killed the Bradley Gang. Something about Villisca ax murders.”

Eds literally hops out of the kitchen, dish towel strikes his knee while he’s holding up his butcher knife. “The Villisca ax murders?!”

“Ok, so, I think it’s obvious that’s what I just said.”

“Right, I know. It’s weird because Mike was just telling me about it.”

“Mike?”

“This is literally the second time we've done this today. Hanlon, Mike Hanlon. The kid who lives out on the farm. Whenever his dad has an appointment at the hospital, they stop and get ice cream at the mall. It’s never anything interesting though, just mint pistachio or cherry chocolate coconut chunk. But anyway, I'm calling him later about the three killers you asked about. Remember? At the mall, we had this conversation.”

“Ok, it's not my fault ADHD makes me have a bad memory. Anyway enough with the ice cream. More about the ax murder?” My back stiffened with all the pressure of the world coming down on me. Something bad. Something bad was about to happen. I found it in the whole fucking file labeled 'Hockstetter' at Patrick Hocksetter’s house. We were right smack in between whatever it was. 

A ripped out piece from a planner labeled **July 3** was the only concrete evidence I had about how we were hurtling toward some sort of catastrophe. Lucky me though, Eds returned his knife, dishrag, and gloves to the kitchen. He made his way toward his bed. The opposite of catastrophe.

“Um, ok, so in Iowa, a family went home after church with two girls joining them for a sleepover. The following day there was no answer from any of the people there so the police showed up to find they’d all been bludgeoned to death at some point between midnight and five in the morning.”

Right away I looked at the clock. Didn’t bode well that we were casually sitting around in such a danger zone. Chief promised to keep an eye out for us. Eds scooted on the bed and I considered getting up to look out and check for any unmarked cop car. Earlier Henry Bowers checked in on us while we visited a bowling alley to ask a lot of questions about Patrick Hockstetter and the last time we saw him. Chief wanted all eyes out there for the guy to stop whatever was about to happen. 

Only instead of leaving, I sank a little deeper into his bed. My whole body still taut with stress. Something bad was going to happen. Something real bad, but no matter what happened, I knew it could be something I could stop.

Eds snapped the elastic band of my boxers and my hands leapt up to protect them. “I can’t believe you still have those things.” Eds propped himself up so he could look down at me. Here we could be such different people then out there. “If this thing is so bad, why don’t we just run?”

“Run? You wanna run? Is it because. . .” I paused with a huge grin about to open my mouth and add to my question.

“No! Don’t! Don’t you. . .”

Oh, but I cut him off. “Ah, come on, Eddie, my love.” I started to sing to him, I reached up pinching his check. “Tramps like us, baby, we were born to run!”

Eds pushed my hand from his face. “Stop it! I’m serious though. We can, we really can just drop everything and run somewhere-somewhere like Vegas.”

I mouthed a long _woooooooooooow_ because this came up too much. “I told you, I’m not a gambler.”

“I know.” Eds mimicked me, “I can feel the fucking energy off the cards and I swear Eds, I’m a good person even though I refuse to call you Eddie even though you correct me all the time.”

I swatted at him. “Whatever Eduardo.”

Eds laughed defending himself. When I left him alone, he returned to his previous position but took my glasses off and set them on a nightstand. I looked past his knees at it. The world may be a lot blurrier but sometimes it was nice to not see in such sharp definition.

“Besides, I was thinking more because of the. . .wedding chapels.”

Man, I sat up so fast, my depth perception all off and our foreheads clunked together. I sat there holding my head while Eds rubbed his forehead. “Wedding chapels?! What are you talking about?”

“Marriage, you idiot. What else?”

Another conversation we harped on. I sank back down into the bed feeling a little defeated. At least Zoltar understood soulmates when he spotted them unlike the rest of the world. Even if this turned out to be ‘just a phase,’ it’d last a hell of a lot longer than a lot of marriages. Although then a lot of other marriages only laugh from the crippling fear of being alone. I sat there eyeing Eds as he camped out, head resting on the palm of his hand and red spot on his forehead. Yet I’d rather be all alone in this world than with somebody other than Eds.

Eds squinted at me like he was waiting for some sort of stupid joke. “What?”

“People like us don’t get married.” I didn’t have a joke.

Eds put his whole hand over my face. “Quiet, I’m imagining a better life.”

 _A better life_ sounded nice. I sighed looking back up at the ceiling no longer able to make out any words. “I’ll need to go soon.”

“Go soon?”

“Yeah, I just said that.” Still, I looked at the ceiling, which forced Eds to lean into my line of view. I smirked. “Bold are we tonight?”

Eds shrugged. “It’s the adrenaline from almost dying from that Hockstetter guy or it was the churros or it was seeing how much of a failure you are at bowling.” He went to run his fingers through some of my hair, no smooth sailing there, his fingertips got caught in my waves.

I squinted, he peeled some hair strands free. I rolled my head to the side noticing for the first time he’d been wearing my old Freese’s Department Store shirt while doing the dishes. I picked at it. “Hey! This is mine!”

“Oh, here, let me give it back right now.” Eds went to take it off but I caught him by the elbows. He left his shirt on looking at me without really making a comment.

“No, wait! I really do have to get going.” When I dared to inch a bit out of comfort, Eds put a hand on my one shoulder as if to block me. “What?”

“I don’t know? Just don’t go. Maybe we just stay here together and instead let whatever happens, happen.”

“You know that I can’t do that.” If I did then so many people’s lives would be on my hands. I’d be some sort of murderer without ever pulling a trigger or anything. “Eddie. . .I gotta go.”

Except Eds wasn’t about to let me slip away. I moved my one hand to move him away. Instead, he used both hands pinning me to the bed there. I was so taken aback at first that I forgot to make any sort of snarky comment and went with the simple raised eyebrow expression.

“You’ll regret leaving this bed,” commented Eds.

I fake gasped. “Did you just threaten me?”

“Depends. Do you want it to be a threat?” 

Keeping my hands pinned, Eds leaned in for one long kiss. My fingers flexed feeling weirdly useless. Eds though nipped at my lower lip before moving his lips down to my neck. I dug my fingertips into my palm doing everything I could to not laugh because being ticklish be damned. His lips found my happy trail causing me to burst out in laughter, I jerked forward a bit knocking his hands loose.

“No, don’t,” I whispered.

Eds sat up looking at me picking at his cheers. “No?”

“No.”

Still, Eds grinned. “I can’t believe I’m forever stuck with somebody who makes nonstop dick jokes but refuses sex each and every time.”

“Shut up, Eds, I got to compensate for something and it’s not the size of my dick.”

Eds flicked my thigh. “I hear you, but seeing is believing.”

“Don’t you dare.”

Eds collapsed back next to me, we both laid there although he moved after a few seconds to rest his head on my chest. Our bodies much closer. He picked at the top of my boxers until I rested a hand over his. 

“I still feel like you should stay here and never leave or we leave Derry together,” but this time around, Eds said it with full seriousness. He whispered it, hanging there right beside me underneath the framed card from Zoltar. “It doesn’t have to be Vegas. What if we stole a sailboat and just went. . .sailing.”

“Sailing. We don’t even know how to sail.”

“Guess we’ll have to learn then.”

I started to move. Eds pulled away from me enough to give me some freedom. I turned on my side partially curled up with him doing the same. Our foreheads touched while he almost buried ourselves deep into his bed, under all those covers and pillows without a threat in the world looming over us. But a cop car waited outside for a reason. 

Danger followed me and danger could follow me straight there to Eds’ place then it’d be all my fault. Staying there meant I could be the death of Eds. Us leaving meant I killed so many other people. Whenever everything went down, whatever the big bad was, the blood would be all on my hands and it wasn’t something I could live with.

“Hey. . .Eds. . .” I kept our conversation going at a whisper.

“Yeah?”

I smiled for him. A sad one, but still genuine. “I really do gotta go.”

“I know.” Eds sat up and I did, too. Some reason the idea _we could’ve gone sailing_ bounced around my thoughts. “But promise me one thing.”

“What?” I kissed his forehead. “Anything for you.”

Eds patted my cheek, nudging me off the bed. “Stop calling me Eds.”

I scooted off the edge grabbing my glasses along the way. Put them back on, stood around there about as awkward as ever in just glasses and boxers. I sighed, shaking my head while looking down at him. “Look, Eds, I can do anything for you, anything but that.”

I should’ve never left. Eds was right. We should’ve either stayed or left together forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't judge me. I don't know how time works anymore and I don't know how to write fluff because I'm a sad person.


	3. July 3 - 1:56 AM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Turns out, Henry Bowers isn't _too_ bad of a guy and we get to meet Bev Marsh who's friends with Richie but about to become a much closer friend because of chaos.
> 
> Also, somebody gets hit by a car.

### 1:56 AM on July 3

Walking home from Eds wasn’t too much work, but sometimes it felt as if we were instead worlds apart. I kicked a few beer cans left in a park by the canal. One soared over the edge and I paused waiting for its big plop, but there was none. I stood still, grounding my feet even though I already wanted to sprint off in some other direction. Henry Bowers waited outside Eds place when I left. He was fine. But nobody was looking out after me. I kept waiting for the _plop_ and continued to hear nothing but shouts from the bar up the street.

Had a pretty good feeling if I burst in there nobody would help me out all with me being some weird-ass kid in wrinkled Hawaiian shirts who spent an unusual amount of time with his male “best friend.” Rather than take the unsmart move and look into the canal, I started to walk. 

You know who had a gun? Eds. And Eds had that gun back at his own place. Not that I liked guns, but a gun felt nice right about now knowing somewhere out there somebody stalked me. While walking straight, I kept an eye out for any sign of a broken bottle rather than a can. A shard of glass would better serve as a weapon. Right? Right.

Behind me, something scraped along the pavement. I walked a bit faster, holding my breath like that’d help me get out of a situation. Eds probably would have something real smart to say like how I needed oxygen to prevent the buildup of lactic acid or something so my muscles will slowly stop working and I’ll fall face-first into the ground and die.

The people up at the bar ahead are loudly singing some Journey song like they all really believe they won’t stop believin’ in whatever their dreams are. My pace quickened. Whatever scraped the ground behind me sounded more like metal cutting across the asphalt. I could picture it sparking up. Up ahead I was pretty sure I spotted a rock or one of those mouse traps made to look like a rock. I hoped it was a fucking rock because I again walked a little faster. The drunks still shouting all out of tune and out of beat. _Don’t stop believin’._

There wasn’t gonna be an easy way to bend over and take the rock up from the ground. As I tried to not be suspicious, a movement from the corner of my eye startled me. The scraping stopped and I froze there realizing something crawled from the canal. 

Tendrils of sludge scraped up the side of the canal. It struck down on the ground as if it were a fully formed hand. More sludge crept over the side, it slapped together into the form of a hand before a spindly creature crawled on up the side. Black sludge and translucent slime ran through its body looking like a mismatched insect until it opened its mouth in one long silent hiss revealing quite the set of razor-sharp teeth.

“Motherfucker!” I grimaced.

A bodach. Wherever they went meant violence, it was what they craved but as far as I was aware, they didn’t cause it. Sti. I liked to pretend we never knew about each other’s existence just in case. All day long they’ve been sloughing around in every possible corner of Derry. Crooked sludge fingers reaching out and around Patrick Hockstetter anywhere he went like they wanted me to stop him, which was such a lie. 

I kept up my act pretending I didn’t spot the bodach though too late on that part seeing I looked right at it and cursed. The scraping behind me continued and there were others with the first bodach. Each one clawing its way from the canals. At a cross street, I squeezed my eyes shut. A car drove past me. In an attempt to visualize town, I wanted an escape but something else practically stopped my heart.

“Help us!” I wasn’t alone with some bodachs.

I clutched my chest feeling my heart ready to rip out. Fuck. Fuck! The day started like this and it wasn’t like it even really ended because I got no sleep. No moment of rest since Patrick Hockstetter walked into the grill looking like a piece of fungus attempting to look like a human man. 

My place was close. But I lived alone. Eds was behind me. But I’d lead danger straight back to him. Yet Chief did station Bowers out front to look after Eds and Vic out to wait around for Hockstetter to return to his place. I opened my eyes looking at the alley between the bar and some other buildings, it wasn’t a dead end and I felt like the trash there could be resourceful.

“Help us!”

Somebody leaped out in front of me. Their face all ripped up, it looked as if somebody tried to paint their wounds with crimson red and black. Their one ankle is shattered forcing their foot out at a weird angle. Their tan pants are all mangled and them with the rest of the others who are all torn up, faces gone, skin stretched over their mouths even though they kept shouting the same thing over and over again. _Help us!_

“Oh, um, sorry. . .can’t. . .” They’re not dead yet. They’re not dead yet. I can help but just not yet.

Above in a tree, a bodach clung there looking down at me. Sludge dripping from its mouth rather than spit. I’m surrounded by those who are about to die. We did the same last night but they caught me and I felt the splintering pain of a gunshot. Struck in the stomach. Rather than wait around for my own death, I sprinted forward stuck in my earlier train of thought.

To be honest, there were three times in one day where I found myself thinking, _I need to talk to Eds_. Make sure he got that I didn’t just love him 'cause of some quarter I spent and Zoltar insisted on it. That I should listen to him the next time he told me to stay or runoff. Whatever scraped grew louder and I barrelled forward. Something clicked. It was going to happen again, I was going to die. Pain fired up deep in my gut, whatever Hockstetter had planned it meant a lot of death. Their death. My death. Stanley Uris’ death, he worked at the grille with me telling me a story of the same dream. Just in his, he saw himself lying on the ground, hot through the head. It had to stop. It had to stop. I kept running along in an escape because I had to stop it, I could stop this. I was sure I could. . .

For another split moment, I fell out of time back into the room full of _nothing_ when I came face to face with three bright lights cutting through the darkness. But wait no. That wasn’t the case. It was two very bright lights as in car headlights. Right when I made a run for it. Sludge grazed right past my arm with bodachs hanging in trees watching me and the future dead begging me. I ran without looking both ways and BAM a fucking car hit me.

At least it wasn’t going so fast? I rolled up onto the hood before being thrown off. I was pretty sure it knocked the literal lights out of me because music from the bar sounded a whole five pitches louder. Some people sang along with _I Ran (So Far Away)_ by Flock of Seagulls. The universe mocked me making sure I understood it was onto me and I was a joke. And not the standup comic kind of joke like my whole life was a stupid joke.

_I just ran, I ran all night and day, I couldn’t get away._

“What the fuck man are you alright?” 

Some light poured in hurting my sore brain. The rest of my body was worse off though. Bruises already swelling up. I moved my head enough to look out behind me to see no more future dead people but a bodach waited in the road. Guess me being hit by a car wasn’t enough violence for the rest of the bodachs to hang around. It sneered at the one in the road before it scurried off. They were fucking with me. 

What I’d give to fall asleep and sleep for a month. I’d consider staying at Eds and sleeping there for a month.

Whoever was out there kneeling with me shouted behind him to somebody at the bar. “Hey! Somebody call an ambulance! That weird glasses kid got hit by a car!” _Is he dead?_ “I don’t think so! He’s glaring at me!”

I squeezed my eyes shut again ‘cause I couldn’t tell what hurt worse, all that light or the whole being hit by a car. Fuck, should’ve stayed. Really should’ve stayed. Eds had a point. I already regretted leaving his place.

“I got this.” I knew that voice. I opened my eyes and moved my head enough to see Bowers coming around the car with a first aid kit. He-He hit me. Bowers car hit me and it shouldn’t have been anywhere else but outside Eds. When I tried to sit up, he put out a hand to stop me. “Hold up, Tozier.”

“You’re-You’re-You’re not supposed to be here!” I snapped at him. H

Bowers patted my cheek before signaling to the other onlookers that things were fine. They knew the guy. No need to worry about some weird kid when a cop was around. Bowers helped me sit up, which didn’t seem like a good first aid move. Though my toes were wriggling and my fingers, too. I was messed up but probably not trauma unit messed up.

“Do you think you can get up?” asked Bowers, which definitely didn’t answer my question.

“What about Eddie?”

Bowers grunted. “Vic’s there.”

“Then who is at Hockstetter’s.”

Bowers chuckled, and look, I’m hilarious but I wasn’t hilarious at that moment. “Oh wait, we didn’t do a really good job at planning this.” Instead of waiting to see if I could get up, he hoisted me to my feet. “We’re trading. I was on my way there but then you decided to run out like that.”

I looked behind me to see nothing by the canal. “Sorry, thought. . .somebody was chasing after me.”

“Do you think you broke anything?”

I shook my head.

“Want me to. . .take you home?” Bowers turned away from the bar so nobody could see him like they’d comment on this question. People were too busy being drunk and singing shitty bops. “Don’t you live in the same direction as where Chief Porter has us stationed?”

I nodded unsure what part of the question I agreed to or if it was both parts. Bowers seemed to believe both parts because he supported me toward the passenger seat of his car. We paused looking at the hood.

Bowers had his one arm around me and he stared at me. “Good thing you didn’t do a lot of damage cause then I’d have to kill you.”

I pretended to laugh because he was hilarious and if anybody were to betray me, I’d put my money on him even as he helped me into the passenger seat. 

For the first time, I realized my glasses had a crack running through the lens. At least, I had an older pair. Pretty close to the same prescription but my eyes were always getting worse. Still probably beat having partially cracked glasses.

Once Bowers was in the car, he flipped through a few stations while casual calls over the radio went off. Nothing weird. More bathroom breaks for people out there in the world that weren’t him, Vic, or Chief. 

“Vic’s at Eddie’s?”

“Yes.” Radio landed on Elvis singing _Hound Dog_. Bowers gave me a side-eyed glance. “Aren’t you the one who knows a lot about Elvis?”

“No, that’s Bill. He now owns Derry Grille. You go there. . .with Chief. I work there.”

“Right,” muttered Bowers. 

The song keeps on playing and Bowers drives off. I make sure I’m buckled in even though he doesn’t. Didn’t feel too safe with him driving seeing that he had a record of hitting things in the road. At least, Vic was at Eddie’s. But if nobody was at Hockstetters, he could slip back in and out unnoticed. I should’ve walked. I really should’ve walked. My knees told me no, no, don’t walk.

We passed Chief’s place. I spotted a light on thinking about telling Bowers to let me out there instead. But he told me over and over again earlier. _Date night. No funny business._ And funny business already went off with Hockstetter coming after Eds and me at the church. Chief and Karla wanted all of one night together without any of “the children” bothering them. As annoyed as Chief sounded when I first called, he asked me why we’d been having a picnic in the church tower then never waited for an answer because instead, he added, _No wait, I’m sure that sounds normal to you._ He got it.

Bowers glanced at me and Chief’s house, it was growing real awkward. “I thought you had something to do with Elvis.”

 _Yeah, sometimes I see his ghost. He’s a regular interviewee at Richie’s All Dead Rock Show._ Instead, I looked at him, lips pressed together and I shook my head. “No, it really is just Bill.”

“Like, Stuttering Bill.”

“No, I’m pretty sure his first name is Billiam not Stuttering.”

At a stop sign, Bowers squinted at me.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He started to drive again. “You’re just such a smart ass. Can’t believe nobody taught you to shut up.”

“Trashmouth is the preferred term.” I tried to nod but my teeth all felt loose and my brain more like marbles rolling around the inside of my head. Not to mention pain spiked with each movement. I rubbed the back of my neck. “Like Richie Trashmouth Tozier, it’s what everybody calls me.”

By then Bowers parked outside the apartment building I lived in. He looked at me all over again. “Thought it was more like Bucky Beaver.”

“Hmm yeah, maybe that, too.” I unbuckled and climbed out whispering _ouch_ with each small and large movement I made. I paused right out there looking in through the door before I closed it. The entire time my back yelled at me for leaning over. “Thanks for not killing me with your car and bringing me home.”

“Close the door,” Bowers retorted.

“Right, yeah, places to be.” 

I bumped it shut with my butt and began to limp toward the complex. Steps wrapped around the outside of the place almost like a motel. I climbed them. We had two levels, I was up top and Beverly Marsh was on the bottom. It was like Bev had super hearing because the moment my foot touched the bottom step she yelled for me.

“Is that you, Richie!”

“Yeah, Bev!” 

She opened her window leaning out while smoking a cigarette. I clung to the railing looking at her. “What the fuck happened to you?”

“Oh nothing, my face always looks like shit.”

“Cut the crap, what happened?”

I really had no clue what I looked like, but I came over toward her. Bev put up a finger. Still smoking her cigarette she took off out of sight. I looked into her apartment, not much was out like me. No bed frame or anything. An odd assortment of just stuff covered the floor. She came back with an ice pack in one hand and a band aid in another. Bowers sucked at doing first aid.

Bev dipped her cigarette into an out of sight ash tray before she leaned out the window fixing up the one side of my face with three bandaids. I was really just glad they’re all Muppets themed and if it weren’t late, I’d demand to have all Rizzo the Rat bandaids. She leaned back dropping an ice pack into my palms. When she first moved in, I was pretty pissed cause I’d always heard stories about her at school. I pushed the ice pack to the side of my head attempting about as genuine of a smile as possible. But getting to know Bev, I learned she was Garbage and I’m not talking about the trash can sort but instead very much the Shirley Manson only happy when it rains sort. But like too many of us, she was real good at attracting about as much tragedy as possible.

“But seriously, what happened to you?” She picked her cigarette back up again to smoke, puffing some smoke at my face. “No lying.”

“I got hit by the car.”

Bev choked on a laugh. “What the fuck? Really?”

“Like a slow-moving car after a stop sign. I really ran into it and not the car running into me.”

“Who hit you?”

“Bowers.”

Bev groaned. “Oh, I hate that guy.” She looked off somewhere looking about as distant as a person could while staying perched right in front of me on the window. Whatever thought passed through her mind dissipated by the time she looked back at me. “Really thought you were back earlier from all the noise upstairs.”

“Noise?” The fuck. “Bev, I haven’t been home all day.”

She shrugged. “Must be ghosts then. It’s not like I’ve seen any people creeping around.”

 _Ghosts don’t make noise._ I looked up toward my apartment. “Yeah, ghosts.” I slapped the window frame and backed up. Still full of ouch, ouch, ouch. “Who knows, maybe it’s Elvis.”

“Oh, well, I hope it’s somebody better than Elvis like John Bonham or Kurt Cobain.”

“Yeah.” But I was too busy looking up at my place to really think about my pain or her words. _Ghosts don’t make noise._

“See ya, Ringwald.”

“Whatever, John Cusack.” Bev moved onto the next cigarette, lighting it up taking away some of the surrounding darkness.

I snorted and raised an eyebrow, which was pointless ‘cause it hurt and she never saw. I could feel the bandaids bending along my face. They were pretty close to my eye, the one with the cracked lens. I really could use a gun. Instead, I used my keys making it like I had some claws even though I’d need to unlock my door but it turned out, wouldn’t need to do that seeing that somebody left my door slightly ajar.

Oh.

Fuck.


	4. July 3 - 2:30 AM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie finds a dead body and not in the super fun Stand By Me way.

### 2:30 AM on July 3

Fuck.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. _Fuck_!

I opened the rest of my door like it wasn’t left there ajar with Bev mentioning sounds upstairs. Pretending it was ghosts, ghosts who made noises hanging out in my apartment. 

The dead don’t talk.

Good thing the place wasn’t so big because one step inside I could survey a situation more or less. With a mattress just lying on the floor left no place for anybody to really hide and the closet always stayed open with wrinkled shirts spilling from it. 

For the most part, my life looked about as normal as ever. From across the room, Elvis stared at me with his cardboard eyes and an everlasting half-smile. On the wall above my mattress in some broken but patched up frames of three characters I decided for one reason or another were relatable. I had George Carlin who more or less graced my room since the beginning of time as my own sort of personal white Jesus, Rick Vaugn from _Major League_ , and Michael Winslow from _Police Academy_ , which for a time meant Chief really believed I’d follow his footsteps. Jokes on him, all I ever wanted was to be a comedian.

My phone, which was the fanciest thing I owned because it was in the shape of a hot dog, sat on what should’ve been a three-legged table but I found it with two and a half. It sat in silence, probably due to the hour. A little light glowed from any messages left behind. 

My kitchen looked regular from where I stood, which involved a mountain of dishes. Whenever Karla came over she’d complain saying how does somebody have enough dishes for such a thing to happen. I’m one person, I should have 1-2 plates, bowls, silverware, cups, and I had more. It all got magically clean though if Eds ever came over, which was unusual because he hated this place here and we stayed at his.

At my feet waited the only noticeable change. Somebody left some pistol right there for me to spot. Haphazard may be the word of choice of somebody else, but not me then and there because the pistol waited for one real good goddamn reason, me. It wanted me. It wanted me to pick it up, look around, and maybe call the police thinking, _Break in_ , but I’d look stupid.

The bathroom door was somewhat closed behind cardboard Elvis who stared me down with his lifeless eyes, and I only ever closed the door whenever I went when somebody else was around. That wasn’t even often. I started to head toward the bathroom but the whole time Elvis stared at me. Being inanimate did him no justice. He looked judgemental, half smiling and mocking me, _What’re you going to do next, Richie Tozier?_

I stepped over the pistol to keep on walking. I could try and call Chief. He’d do anything in his power to protect me but it’d get weird. People would shake their heads and point out that for too long he acted like I was his son when I wasn’t. Then they’d dig up some other story like how Wentworth Tozier was out there selling plot on the moon. He didn’t own the moon, but when he realized such a fact, he mailed a letter to the United Nations claiming the land then began to sell it off to whoever should listen. I, unfortunately, listened for too long before hanging up on him again without ever hearing the end of what he wanted to say.

What I’d give to actually have my mom, Maggie, around again. The thought was only fleeting because I had Bev downstairs and Karla a phone call away. But sometimes we find ourselves wanting our parents in the strangest moments. 

Stepping forward I tried to push Maggie from my brain. I didn’t know where she was in the world since I ‘moved’ out. Thing was though, it wasn’t like she was around to see me go. Instead, before I ended up leaving she left first. Never even saw her go. I came back to find all her stuff gone and Wentworth standing around saying he was going to pay the bills now and if I wanted an allowance, I needed to mow the lawn. 

I figured Maggie always left because a year before I ‘moved’ out Wentworth kicked my sister out to the ‘loony bin.’ She snapped one day shouting about a gift of hers, one I assumed we shared. Except Wentworth had no interest in hearing her out while Maggie wanted some answers. Some fight went down involving a knife. My sister lost. My sister was locked up. Maggie left. And then I ended up leaving as well, too. Thing was though, I never really thought of them as bad people. They were no Sonia Kaspbrak and the stories I’ve heard from Bev make me wanna believe they’re good people who are also good at making bad decisions.

For some reason, I started to blow on my half-shut door like it’d open up for me. I didn’t want to touch it, adding any more DNA to the scene struck me as a bad move on my side. My DNA was already everywhere. In too many uncomfortable places to discuss with Chief, Bowers, or any of the police.

I could call Eds.

Instead, I slid forward being careful to not make a sound. This was mainly because I am great at making bad decisions. Like really, really, really bad decisions. Whoever made me, their fingers slipped and they crafted me out of so many bad decisions and then was like _Oh shit, let’s also give this prick some psychic powers!_

I opened the bathroom door a bit more, just enough to learn how un-alone I was. I came almost face to face with the one and only Patrick Hockstetter who I chased across town and in return, he chased me back.

One problem though: In reality, I came face to face with a _dead_ Patrick Hockstetter. Shot in the forehead. I backed from the bathroom looking at the pistol casually lying out there on the ground still begging for my attention and fingerprints. Chief couldn’t get me out of this. I broke into the guy’s place. He had every right to come after me and now look at us, I’m down one big bad villain and today was already tomorrow and that was the day everything bad was gonna happen.

I couldn’t call Eds.

Squeezing my eyes shut, any cuts and bruises yelled at me. I needed to remember, remember, and really think this out.

I had the biggest problem, which probably was the biggest problem anybody could ever have.

My problem was this strange man walled into Derry Grille in the morning with a crazy fucking amount of bodachs twisting all around him. Bodachs meant only one thing, violence. They’re everywhere now. It all started after. . .the dream. I found the strange room of _nothing_ , but the guy with a whole ass serial killer shrine wasn’t the perp.

Then who was? I needed a moment to rewind and think it out, to think it all out. . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And then. . .this is gonna back up for a bit to piece together a bigger mystery.
> 
> Just get ready for some suspense, action, tragedy, and guest appearances from the rest of the Losers and maybe a Pennywise reference.
> 
> Um if you enjoy this please give me a shout, but if you're not into it, please forever hold your peace.


	5. July 2 - 8:45 AM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we get to hang out with Bill, Stan, Eddie, and Richie as some shit starts to go down.

# Memory #1

### 8:45 AM on July 2

I could act like nobody ever shot me. It was an actual fact, nobody ever physically shot me. In fact, I’ve never been shot at in real life. There was one time though where a bad man figured out I was on to him and handcuffed me to some dead bodies then dropped me into the canal, but that’s a very different story. One Chief is still mad about the whole thing because I showed up on his doorstep ruining his date night. 

Anyhow, in a better attempt to focus, what I meant was that I was shot in a dream. 

Focus.

People chased after me begging to be saved and gunshots tore through them and then a single shot to the stomach ripped right through me. There was blood everywhere until there was no more. It’d been soaking deep into my mattress then I had a clean mattress all over again with the same old _Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers_ sheets (I accept no criticism on my beeding of choice). 

Even by the time I made it to work at Derry Grille, I felt all shaken up. I grabbed onto a spatula about to stand behind a grill ready for the morning rush to pop up. I could act like nobody ever shot me. I’m not an anxious person, never. Death and I were pretty well acquainted with one another so fear was something I could shove into some back corner of my mind and talk to some shrink about it on some later date if I could ever afford such a thing.

“R-R-R-Richie!”

“ _What_?” I snapped, didn’t mean to but I sure did snap right at Bill who stood on the other side of the big window at the bag of Derry Grille. 

It opened up making me feel like I was some celebrity chef even though I’d yet to really figure out my personal schtick. But at least there, I even got an audience sitting right before me at a little bar. Thanks to Bill, I figured out how to cook food. He saved me from a whole life where I lived off peanut butter and jelly sandwiches having to hear from Eds how I can’t eat those and churros all the time, I’d die. Every other person backed down from being a fry cook there ‘cause they couldn’t handle being the center of attention unlike me, who will die if I’m not the center of attention. Didn’t matter how dangerous the situation was, my brain demanded it and my brain got what it wanted. 

“Sorry, I mean. . .what?” But I said with a nicer tone ‘cause Big Bill looked real taken aback. Also, he’s a real nice guy who’s had a tough time for almost as long as I could remember.

“Y-Y-You have an order.” He signaled to Stan who stood there pining a little paper up for me to see. “Are y-y-you, o-o-ok?” Typical Bill though, asking how others are always doing while shutting up about his own life unless he really needed help with something.

And yet I swear every time he spoke I just wanted to shout, _Just spit it out_ , because I’ll forever be a real dick.

Stan gave me the look, the _Stan look_ ™, which was hard to define. I swear that kid needed a whole lotta therapy because he was always looking both full of such sadness and unexpected snark at the same time. “Eggs, wreck ‘em and stretch ‘em. And one porky sitting, hash browns, cardiac shingles.”

Still, Bill stood and stared. He inherited the place after his brother up and died. By that, I mean, he was murdered. By who? We never found out. I really mean _we_ , too. The dead don’t speak, I don’t know why, but they don’t speak. A few times back in the day of high school, I spotted his kid brother in the yellow raincoat he died in, crawling after something headed toward a sewer drain. Sometimes we looked at each other. I’d go _Georgie_ hoping to help him out but George always just shook his head before looking for whatever it was he lost. Once Bill told me it was a paper boat he made him. I didn’t like the sound of that.

Anyway, Bill's parents kinda just sucked after that. They never wanted anything to do with it so he started working hours there up until he could own the actual damn place and moved into some apartment above. I started to flip some eggs while people started to watch me. At least Stan left with his Stan look™. But soon he digressed and moved about the grille to see what else needed to happen.

Some kids sat up front and I smirked at them. One of them watched as I flipped some food and piped up, “Is that dangerous? Can I try?”

I continued to smirk mimicking Darkwing Duck, “Let’s get dangerous.”

From somewhere behind me, Bill yelled without a single stutter, “Don’t you dare!”

Stan returned with another order, he clipped it up. “Child labor laws.”

I leaned forward a bit whispering to the two kids, “Don’t listen to them, they don’t know what fun is.”

Stan cocked his head to the side while opening and closing waiting to say something, but decided it was better to disengage than engage.

Joke’s on Stan, I continued to engage. “What? I put the _fun_ in dys _fun_ ctional.”

Stan shook his head. “Did you ever stop and consider that you’re not funny?”

“No.” 

He rolled his eyes and did another round and I started to work on some pancakes when the door opened, it’s little bell brringing so we all knew somebody was coming in. It went off too much during a rush but still, I felt the need to look up each and every single time until Eds. And Eds walked in, he sort of stumbled with a weird clumsiness that made me really reconsider why he purchased a bright red scooter. If his mother was still around, she’d be shouting about it nonstop. Seeing that she was dead, I figured it was why he decided to buy one. Not once did I ever tell him he could die or hurt himself even though I thought about it. Eds knew. Wasn’t like he was stupid. He’d heard enough life threats from Sonia anyway. 

Eds peeled his safety goggles from his face, they were the best because they made him look like he had some giant bug eyes. As he made his way across the grille toward the bar up front, he hugged his yellowed helmet while wearing his iconic fanny pack. It sat off a bit to the side with all his meds and inhaler and one time I found some condoms inside it but he turned so bright red, it looked like he was about to go down with anaphylactic shock.

Eds hopped onto an empty seat and by ‘hopped onto,’ I really mean he attempted before sliding off the top of it but Chief was there catching him.

“Wow there, Kaspbrak.” Chief gave up his newspaper to help Eds out while shaking his head. “Can’t believe this kid here is still alive.”

“I’m not as fragile as I look.”

I returned to Eds and Chief dropping a strawberry milkshake for Eds, which matched the polo he wore for work. It seemed a little dangerous though. Eds and all the other employees at the mall ice cream shop wore light strawberry pink polos with white shorts, but I was pretty sure Eds always wore white short shorts either because he was oblivious or he acted oblivious and wanted to wear them on purpose.

“Trust me, I know,” added Richie. “But I don’t kiss and tell.”

Chief’s eyes bulged and he acted as if he heard none of this as he took a big gulp from the smoothie he got every morning. At a table behind him, Bowers sat with one of the newer officers, I had yet to really meet him so his name and existence meant nothing to me. Bet he was an asshole though. 

We all talked the day before after I chased down a guy who murdered Penny Kallisto. She walked up a few steps looking at me and we were able to stop the guy from killing anybody else. Both Bowers and the new guy laughed real loud. The sound of it just annoyed me. I almost let the pancakes sit out for too long on the griddle fashing to all the time Bowers tripped me in hallways, called me fag, called Eds fairy boy, and just relentlessly mocked people and now to think, he was a police officer. Seemed fucked up. Chief said people deserve second chances especially if he could offer me a million different second chances.

“Pst, what is it?” asked Eds.

“Nothing.” I turned back to work and Eds tried his best to climb over the counter. Bad idea. He kicked the smoothie away from Chief who rolled his eyes. He hated us. He had to hate us. Bill came back out from the back glaring at the two of us. “EEEEEDIE!” I mocked his mom’s voice. “Now you have to clean that up.” 

“Sorry! I wanted a quick private moment,” commented Eds on the other side. He did start grabbing napkins from one of the dispensers to clean it up. I finished up the pancakes while he struggled with his mess. I dropped them off on plates for Stan to take elsewhere before dropping down with a rag doing a much better job at cleaning up. “Not fair! You think I’d be the master at cleaning up ice cream by now.”

“What do you want?” I asked. We were just out of sight from everybody. 

Bill took over for the brief moment I was gone without me being really gone.

Eds smiled and shrugged. I rolled my eyes and kissed him real quick on the forehead. “Could you stop being adorable for a second?”

“Adorable?!” Eds stood up with a handful of messed up napkins, all he took from Chief who made no further comments on us two. “Puppies are adorable.”

“Eds. . .”

“Stop calling me that!”

“ _Eds_. . .you’re adorable but like not puppy adorable.”

“I swear, I really swear. . .” 

I took over cooking duties again as Eds tossed his mess into the trash and walked around everything this time around to sit in his seat. When he did, I looked at him through smoke about to ask him _What did he swear?_

But any chance of normalcy was robbed from me. Music hit a weird note. Not even weird. Some reason a complete normal song began to play, _Zombie_ by The Cranberries and yet I could feel an actual inkling of violence in my heart. It twisted around there but I scanned the place to see nothing amiss. The only difference was Bowers and the other officer standing up waving to Chief.

Maybe I looked too weird trying to calculate what was wrong ‘cause Bowers shot me some rude ass look. “Good job yesterday. . .Rich. . .”

Something wasn’t right. Not them. Something else. Maybe.

“No problem!” I yelled after him before my brain decided I should word vomit all over the place. Probably a better option than actual vomit all over people’s foods. “Just don’t forget to call your hairdresser, the past wants its mullet back.”

“What the fuck, Richie?” snapped Eds. “You can’t just say stuff like that!”

“Language,” muttered Chief, shaking his head. Oh, he already had enough of me this week.

Bowers scowled but he left with other guy.

“Also, we need to talk about yesterday,” commented Chief. Here we go the fuck again. “You shouldn’t chase after a dangerous person on your own like that. What would’ve happened if he hurt you? What if he killed you?”

“Ok, but here me out. . .he didn’t.”

Of course, Stan returned bringing in more orders. “Oh yeah?” He looked from Chief to me. Eds kept his head down and out of the conversation while enjoying his morning milkshake. “Maybe my life would’ve been a little better then.”

“Oh shut up, Stanny Boy, you know you’d be heartbroken.”

“Oh, yes, very much so. So heartbroken.” Stan left again, forever busy like the rest of us.

I poured too much pancake batter in front of me, it seeped out everywhere sizzling back at me while I watched the door because something writhed underneath the bottom gap. Its sludge falling apart and reforming as a bodach. 

Gunshots echoed in my memory. Just a dream. It was nothing but a dream. People dream all the time and it doesn’t become reality. My stomach ached as if somebody punched me so hard but with a knife in hand. Blood could be everywhere for all I knew, mixing with pancake batter. Maybe Bill or Chief or Eds said something but the spindly nature of the bodach rose up, it’s limbs stretching around, always forming and falling apart. 

Instead of being reasonable, I used the spatula acting like I could chop up the mess in front of me. Hear me out, pancake hash browns. Some fear sank into Eddie’s expression while he watched me stiffen there pretending I could fix this mess, I could fix this mess, this mess in front of me and whatever violence the bodach sought. 

Its fingers stroked people’s cheeks before crawling past them. It went from stranger to stranger to stranger then-then it climbed up beside Eds. I almost vomited actual vomit and not word vomit. All I could do was pretend I couldn’t see the thing caressing the side of Eddie’s face with his crooked fingers. Its melted nails even ran through his hair. 

Eds went to speak to Chief about something normal, something not about me, but nobody else could see violence ready to prey upon them.

Something was terribly wrong.

“EDDIE SPAGHETTI!” I screamed. 

Both him and Chief looked at me, I blew a kiss in his direction but more at the bodach who black tongue squirmed from its mouth, past razor-sharp teeth going to kiss the side of his face. But Eds snapped his hand out pretending to catch the kiss, it was as if he backhanded the bodach who tumbled away from him. 

“Hey,” I whispered but it was lost in all the frying going on.

“R-R-R-RICHIE!” Bill yelled at me all over again.

I wonder if tears could make breakfast taste better. Some came about to shake loose but I kept them hidden. 

Eds smiled at Chief. “Good thing I caught that because that would’ve been pretty weird.” But when his attention turned back to me he mouthed something along the lines of _You ok?_ or _Why mayo?_

“Weird is an understatement for the two of you.” Chief shook his head going to drink his smoothie, but I never got him a new one.

I sort of forgot how to cook, too.

The bodach looked gone. I backed up about to start over again cooking more because cooking is what I do there while also communing with the dead. With a quick move, I wiped any potential tears from my face with my elbow. Couldn’t breathe. Anxiety swelled in my heart and attacked my stomach while I was at it. Sooner or later I’d be riddled with stomach ulcers.

I dropped off some plates for Stan who came up there looking at us with a raised eyebrow. They looked all sloppy, not the usual. Stan glanced at them before pretending to smile as he looked up at the three of us. “The two of you are weird _and_ messed up.”

“What?” My voice shook, I choked on it but took a pause to sound calm all over again. With great strength came great sarcasm. “Eds isn’t weird.”

Eds perked up. “Hey! Wait! So you deny me weirdness and let me be just messed up?”

“Yeah, maybe you should find a new. . .” Stan paused looking at Eds and then he said it out loud like it wasn’t even an issue “. . .boyfriend.” Didn’t even whisper it. Nobody was minding our business anyway.

Yet Eds scowled at him. Wish I could read minds to know what popped up there in his memories. Mine were full of gunshot echoes. His probably had Sonia echoes. Bet she used to whisper to him every night about how gay was the hardest disease to cure and she already spent so much money curing all his other diseases.

I backed up toward the center of the kitchen area there unable to think about what was what and what was needed for any of this. Something squished under my foot, I looked down pretending I did not, I did not step on top of a bodach. Its hand waited there and I grabbed onto a giant thing of salt for no reason at all before grabbing onto some hot sauce as well. Don’t let them know that I know.

“Gotta go to work!” Eds yelled and Chief got up, too, nodding cause he needed to do the same.

“Cool, it’s all. . .on me.” 

I stood there trying not to tremble or look terrified. I looked normal, not. Eds backed away tilting his head to the side while studying me. He pointed around or signaled. I just shook my head before he pointed at me and I nodded. The bodachs body grew, its inky sludge ruining some of my view but I could see past other parts of it to watch Eds leave who sighed. Meanwhile, Stan stood around waiting for more food to pass out keeping a quiet eye on me. He still had that whole Stan look™ going on but it was easy to ignore with a creature searching for such violent death widening before me.

All of the sudden, the bodach snapped its attention around and as if no longer sludge slithering around, it rocked forward. Everything I held fell to the ground. Salt exploded at my feet, bad luck, didn’t care. Instead, I even sprinted a few steps forward, almost crash landing my hands on top of the griddle.

“EDDIE!”

Already Eds stood in the doorway getting ready to protect his face with his safety goggles. Chief held the door open for him as somebody else attempted to squeeze inside. Whoever marched past them attracted the attention of the bodach who went after him. A whole new person for bodachs to embrace.

Eds pulled his goggles back up a bit and I pushed my glasses up the bridge of my nose. A few people pretended not to look at me and him. But they sure did stare. Stan included who never left and never stopped looking at me. Again Bill came out without spitting out another _R-R-Richie_.

All eyes were on me staring across the Derry Grille and Eddie Kaspbrak.

_I miss you already._ “Save me some pumpkin stracciatella for lunch.”

Eds did a quick sweep of the place, his cheeks starting to turn a little red. He’d be a tomato by the time he got to the mall. He wore his bug eyed safety goggles and nodded. At least he shouted something back, “Um. . .ok!” 

With that, he was gone with Chief but before the door could even close more bodachs wriggled in. Their spines crushed in the doorway but still they were able to make it inside crawling across the floor, walls and ceiling. I’d never seen so many in one spot. All of them chased after a person who walked in. He looked more like fungus pretending to be human and took a seat in an area Bill worked. One bodach sat behind him nibbling on his ear while others pressed up and around his legs.

Again the gunshots of a distant dream memory sounded off with the pain growing. I almost collapsed but Stan caught me by helping me stand up straight. “I think you should go home,” he commented. “You’re acting really weird and you almost died by grill. I don’t want to witness that.”

“No, I’m fine.” I went to start up again but Bill returned giving me a weird look. “What?”

“Y-Y-You should go. I-I-I c-can cover for y-y-you.” Bill then went over to grab a greasy bag that’d been sitting around for some time; he handed it off to the fungus man who bodachs were too interested in. He got up leaving and I tossed the spatula to the side taking Bill’s words to heart. Yeah, I should go. “Wait! N-N-Not yet!”

But already I was out the door and darted across the street. Luckily, a car came close to hitting me but didn’t. Whoever it was flipped me off as they swerved around me and not into any other kids. I stood at the edge of a park watching as the fungus man and bodachs were off. Something wrong was gonna happen. Something so bad. I knew it right then and there. Could feel it ready to burn my whole face off.

“Um Richie?”

I yelped not meaning to do so and turned to find Stan right there with his classic look absent. “You’re an odd one, and I know Eddie seems to think angels fly out of your butt or something and I feel like there’s. . .”

“Eddie said that? Angels fly out of my butt?”

“What? Stop. Yeah, but let me get to the point.”

“No, I wanna know what he said about the butt stuff.” I pushed my glasses back up again. The guy was gone with all the danger piling up and around you. “Fine, I get it. I’m not funny. What is it?”

Stan bit down on his lower lip while he looked at me. “I actually. . .need your help with something.”

“Yeah, what?” I said looking at the canals. It’d been right around here where Zoltar told us an ultimate truth. **You are destined to be together forever.**

But I turned back around to look over at Stan who looked like shit, which I failed to notice earlier. He always looked sad or depressed or distant. Sometimes he’d come in late carrying in a birding book or I’d find him in the back sketching out birds or sometimes talking to this one girl in town named Patty who I never really got to know. But I also never really got to know Stan even though I always wanted to. I couldn’t ever tell if he was more sarcastic than he led on or straight up thought I was some obnoxious asshole because let’s be real, I am an obnoxious asshole.

“Could you read me?”

“Read. . .you? What? Like your palm?” I took his hand touching one of the lines crossing it but Stan pulled away swinging his hand around. “Too late, I saw the truth. A tall, dark, and handsome stranger is in your future.

Stan groaned looking up at the sky for a moment before back at me. “I had a dream last night where I saw my face.”

Call an ambulance because my heart actually skipped a beat. I snapped my full attention to him, squinting like that’d help me make sure he wasn’t fucking around with me. “You-You saw yourself in a dream? Like your face?”

Stan shrugged and nodded. “Yeah, me and Mike were together in it. I was standing there looking down at us, it looked as if we were all torn up and there were others.”

“Others?” I choked on the word. I covered my mouth coughing, it hurt on its way up. Those consonants cut through the inside of my throat. “What-Who were the others?”

“No idea. It looked like they were all torn up too or shot at. I don’t know. They had on tan pants and-and green polos, I think with bowling pins on the back but there’s not a place around with shirts like that.”

“Isn’t there a bowling alley in town?”

Stan shrugged. “Well, yeah, but. . .I work there, too, and that’s not the uniform. It’s red.”

We stood there staring at each other. Something was wrong. Something bad. Something was going to happen. Those same people dressed in the same way, their faces ripped off but they still cried out begging me to save them before gunshots rang out. I touched my stomach and lifted my hand expecting to see it smeared in blood.

Stan kept on, “Somebody shot me in the head and. . .”

I cut him off. “Do your dreams ever come true?”

Stan shook his head. “I. . .I don’t think so.” 

He paused looking at me probably seeing about every ounce of fear in the world weighing me down. I’d be much louder than usual if it hadn’t. Something was wrong. Something bad. Something bad was going to happen. Real bad. I’d only ever seen that many bodachs in one place at one time as they congregated around a nursing home before some freak earthquake ate it up. Earthquakes don’t strike Maine. All they wanted was violence to feast on or whatever.

I needed to go. Go find that guy. Eds called it psychic magnetism. If I started to walk, I’d somehow find him again and again and again and again and then I’d know what the fuck was happening. But right when I took a step away from Stan, he spoke up again.

“Do your dreams ever come true?”

“Never,” I lied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pls don't judge me, I don't eat breakfast food and don't go to places like this. I do not know how these things work.
> 
> Also sorry this is so long, I don't know how that happened.


	6. July 3 - 3:00 AM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie asks Beverly Marsh a huge favor. The sort he doesn't want her to ask questions about.

# Present

### 3:00 AM on July 3

 _This is a bad idea. This is a bad idea. This is the worst idea!_ I kept telling myself the same thing on loop, I considered adding a little bit of a sing-song nature to it. Maybe a good Elvis impression could move it a lot. _This ain’t nothing but a bad idea._ Didn’t really hit right. Maybe some Jim Morrison would fit ‘cause he was full of a lot of bad ideas.

“WHAT?!” Bev yelled after she finally opened the door.

I offered up a sheepish smile. “Can I borrow your car for an errand?”

“What? No!” Bev yawned. “Richie! It’s like three in the morning.”

“Bev, it _is_ three in the morning.”

“Ok, but still! Why do you need my car?” She dragged her fingers through her red curls while standing in her doorway.

“I already explained it, I need to run an errand.” I paused. Bev folded her arms over her chest and tapped her foot while studying me there. Somehow she plucked a whole sigh from me. “Ok, Bev. . .can I consider you a friend? Like a good friend?”

“Sure?” She added a shrug to her response. “How come? And like how good of a friend are we talking?”

“Like best friend who won’t ask any questions when I say what I’m about to do or say?”

Bev squinted at me. “Richie, I question everything you do and say.”

“What if I told you. . .it involved shovels?”

Bev stepped outside closing the door and added in a whisper. “Oh shit, did you kill a person? Aren’t you friends with the police? I can’t just call them if you’re friends with them, right?”

“No, no. . . _I_ didn’t kill anybody.”

Well, I wasn’t helping out my situation ‘cause Bev stood there gawking at me. Didn’t know if she was about to help me although she signaled for me to wait and disappeared inside for a few minutes. She came back with a shovel. I like Bev. I smiled and nodded at her but she frowned and shook her head.

“I knew I could trust you,” I commented as I backed up about to lead her upstairs. 

“I’m going to kill you” She followed me upstairs and dropped her shovel the moment she spotted Hockstetter all wrapped up there on the ground. Bev glared at me. “Whaaaaat the fuck happened, Richie Tozier?”

“Don’t worry, either we’ll get in trouble for murder or transporting the world’s largest blunt.”

“ _Richie_. . .you better answer some of my questions.”

We stood there not talking at first while I stared at Hockstetter all wrapped up there and then looked at Bev again picking up her shovel. While he was super dead, I didn’t trust him to stay dead. Also, there was still the issue with the whole pistol thing being there and somebody framing me. Didn’t really know how to tell Bev the whole situation so I decided to start off the conversation with the simplest part.

“I see dead people.”


	7. July 2 - 3:17 PM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie and Eddie get ice cream.
> 
> Fluff, like so much fluff. I never write fluff but it's here.

# Memory #2

### 3:17 PM on July 2

The moment I walked up, Eds handed me a single scoop ice cream cone of my genuine favorite, pumpkin stracciatella. He stood there by some fake trees set up to make the food court feel like a forest? Not really sure what the thought process there was but he stood there with an ice cream of his own dedicated to balsamic banana. We watched one of those car displays because Hockstetter checked it out. Some annoying bop played over the speakers but didn’t seem to bother Eds while he kept an eye on our newfound enemy.

I sighed. Ice cream already melted all over my fingers as I watched bodachs crawling all over him. A snack seemed a whole lot nicer than future mass death parading before me. One bodach clung to his leg while another sat on the car and a third played with his hair. None of which he noticed ‘cause it be like that all the time.

“Do you see. . .?” Eds asked. 

Bodach wasn’t ever a word he wanted to say out loud not since I told him about meeting one other person I knew for sure who was like me. It was where I got the name from. The guy stood there telling me about how he called them _bodachs_ then SQUISH a truck hit him. Some bodach leaped into a man’s windshield and the truck took him out. Some blood hit my face like somebody spat on me.

“Yeah,” I muttered just taking a regretfully big bite of ice cream. It froze my head and I gasped and hissed like that’d get the pain to stop.

“You checked his fridge right?”

I tried to keep my tongue pressed to the top of my mouth. Some trick my sister insisted did the trick whenever a brain freeze occurred. I missed her and my mom. The last time I really cried probably was when they both left my life. 

“Huh? What? No. Wait, we’re talking about the same thing right?”

Eds snorted knocking the rest of his ice cream on the floor.

“You’re cleaning that up.”

“Shut up, Richie!” 

He already was off getting some napkins. I watched him go toward one of those weird garbage things that move and speak to you when you drop some trash inside of it. Before Eds turned around, I whipped my attention around back to the car like I never watched him. Not at all. But fuck, Hockstetter was gone. Just a bodach sat on the car probably looking after him. Beside me, Eds cleaned up the messed and I messed up. When he looked up, he noticed, too. 

“So much for that, I guess. But hey it’s you. Just start walking, you’ll find him again.”

Some reason whenever he brought these things up, I faked my best smile or a smirk, and no matter the case, I was real fucking good at smirking. Except then and there, I didn’t. ‘Cause something was more wrong than usual. 

Eds knew everything. 

Chief somewhat knew. 

Karla figured I was pretty weird. 

I think Maggie knew but I think she knew only because my sister probably had it, too. 

No matter what though, only Eds ever tried to figure out words for each thing, breaking out comics, movies, or a dictionary. His favorite term he coined was _psychic magnetism_. For some reason the bad in this world and I were connected, I started walking, I’d be drawn to whatever bad was about to happen. Guess it’s why I needed to attempt to stop it from happening or fix the aftermath. Whatever was coming was entwined with me whether I wanted to go to Vegas or not or wanted to stay inside Eddie’s apartment. Nothing else mattered.

“Can we go back to the fridge conversation? Who’s fridge we talking about?” I enjoyed my ice cream and leaned into the planter while watching Eds. “You’re not judging me, right?” The last time Eds came over I threw open my fridge showing him a series of Gatorade bottles filled with PBR and all Eds said was _You’re a fucking idiot_. Good point ‘cause most of my beer had a weird subtle hint of strawberry-kiwis or cool blue. Not a good taste on PBR.

“That fungus, ugly, Hockstetter man. You should’ve checked his fridge. It’s where serial killers keep the heads of their victims.”

I guffawed attracting some unwanted attention in our direction. Eds was gonna be all embarrassed but he kept his cool there in public in his strawberry pink polo and white shorts. All he had left was bits of a cone and spilled ice cream wrapped up in his napkins.

“Ok, but not all serial killers are cannibals. He could be vegan.”

“Oh yeah,” whispered Eds. It looked as if he thought too long about this. “Or wait, but wouldn’t it be rude to be vegan and murder? Like wouldn’t that defeat the purpose of being vegan?”

“Probably.”

“Yeah.” Eds nodded looking back at the car. “So what are we gonna do about it?”

“Wait! _We_?” Some reason I wanted to ask him, _Since when was there a we?_ Stupid question because there was always a _we_. Don’t remember when we met or why we started to talk but we did and we grew closer and then learned we were destined to be together forever. Ridiculous, but it really was a fucking fact. But me being me and needing to always say my instant thoughts, “What do you mean by _we_? There isn’t a we. There’s just. . .me.”

Eds snorted, shaking his head. “You know that’s a lie.”

“It’s not a lie. How can it be us solving a problem when only I can see ghosts?”

He looked right at me. “Then why are you here?”

Point taken.

Psychic magnetism be damned. More like schedule be. . not damned? 

We always met up whenever Eds got a break, it just so happened that this time around I ended up meeting him on his break while I hunted down a potential serial killer, mass murder, violent guy who was about to unleash some sort of catastrophe on all of Derry.

Before I could offer up a sorry, Eds looked at his wristwatch. “I’ve got to go back soon.” He went to toss his trash and I followed.

“Wait! You said we’re gonna go to Sam Goody.”

Eds scowled at the trash can as it thanked him. “Yeah, I guess I did say that. But _we_ don’t have to go, you can.”

“C’mon! Don’t be like that! I didn’t _really_ mean it like that and-and it’s me, I just say whatever is in my head no matter how stupid and I’m sorry. Look, I’ll even go over everything again but. . .can it be at Sam Goody?”

Eds started to walk in that direction. “You win, Richie.” 

Even with his much shorter legs, he kept up a much faster pace, I had to catch up with him. And I was all lanky arms and legs. My mom used to tell me I’d grow into them, that didn’t happen. Not yet. Don’t know if she’d still say the same because she’s not around to make such a comment. On occasion after a few drinks, I liked to imagine her and my sister having a nice life somewhere in the world. Maybe even out in Vegas and they’d be surprised when Eds and I showed up to tell her how Wentworth is trying his hardest to sell vacation houses on the moon.

Inside Sam Goody, Eds and I moved together pretending to flip through albums like we cared because I ended up talking too much. A lot happened.

“When I got there, he left. Hockstetter but that was of course before I knew his name.” A few times Eds glanced at me while I spoke or lifted a CD we had an inside joke about so we could laugh it off. I didn’t follow some future murderer into his home. “The place was a complete dump.”

“You live in a dump,” Eds interrupted.

“Ok, but mine is like the dump of Beverly Hills and this was Skidrow dump.”

Eds snorted and rolled his eyes. “No LA. Only Vegas. I’m sure Zoltar would agree.”

Real fast I snapped my hands together creating a ‘z’ and shouted, “ZOLTAR!”

“Get on with the story already.”

I nudged his side. “As you wish.” It got Eddie to super eye roll, biggest ever and he took off to another aisle. “So the place was an actual dump, the most dumpiest dump that cockroaches even vomit at the thought of living there. That’s if cockroaches can vomit, I don’t know. While there I found-I found. . .” The words were weird, they’d always be weird. Thinking of opening the door to find _nothing_ in front of me. Even with life and death being clear, the dead said nothing about what happens after. They were here and then they were _there_. Don’t know the _there_ , but when I stepped through the door, I realized there were two of me as I approached three bright lights. “Maybe a portal to hell, I’ve never seen anything like it and I’d rather not.”

“Hold up, Richard, don’t go back there.” Eds returned to his regular interrupting as he lifted up a Kid Rock album, which had me shaking my head so fast. A lot of no. He dropped it wherever the hell he found it. “I don’t like the idea of you hanging around hell portals.”

“I don’t like the idea of you listening to shit music.”

Eds snapped his attention right to me. He said nothing, just stared at me real hard. His thoughts weren’t available for me to know. Instead, he pressed his lips together, the color blanched from them and he looked back down again and started to move along the aisle as if to say _go on_.

But I let us have a break from our impending doom by lifting up the new Fugees album. Eds mouthed _no_ at me but I stuck his comment away by shaking my head. I followed him a bit closer with it in hand.

I by no means have a good singing voice, but that never stopped me. And sang I did while poking Eds with the CD, smirking at him. “Strumming my pain with his fingers, singing my life with his words, killing me softly with his. . .” But Eds put his hands over my face, still sticky from cleaning up the ice cream. I licked his palm causing him to fling his hands away from me shaking them. “Woah, woah-oah-ah-ah-ah uh, uh, la-la-la, la, la, la.” I kept on singing to him.

“No!” Eds pointed at me.

“Strumming my pain with. . .”

Eds made another attempt to cover my mouth. Instead, I caught his wrist. He squinted at me ready to see what the hell was up until I kissed the pad of his middle finger. My lips brushed across his finger about to kiss a different finger but he began to wave his hand freeing it, almost knocking my glasses from my face. At least he stood around close to me. I bit the corner of my lower lip while we stood around the CD store in the midst of _us_ trying to figure our approaching doom.

“Richard Trashmouth Tozier, I will leave you right this second to scoop ice cream if you keep up whatever you call that because that was not singing.”

“Fine.” I dramatically rolled my eyes and backed up to return the album. “You’re lucky I didn’t like sing _Ready or Not_ , that’d sound like a threat.”

“Yeah, probably because you’re a threat to society.”

“Rude.”

Eds offered me a crooked smile in response. “But ok, get on with it, so crappy place, cockroaches hate it, a portal of hell, what else?”

“Right. . .” 

I needed to pause trying to remember right because I scattered all those thoughts on accident. Happened a lot. Focus. Focus was not my friend. Sometimes it was so hard I just sat around not doing anything, it felt like a complete shutdown and I was approaching that. Couldn’t let it happen. _Focus_. At least, Eds gave me a moment to regain my shattered thoughts. 

“So. . .I made it out and opened the door again, but it was a study. And it was all like serial killer shrine with like Charles Manson up there and um-um I think David-David whats-his-face from like Son of Sam, and John Wayne Gacy. It was all photos and clippings about them, all taped to the wall with scotch tape and like even Gacy dressed as a clown or whatever and then there were all these files out there, coffee stained and disgusting but in order. There was mail in the kitchen, it’s how I figured out his name. Patrick Hockstetter and he had a file on himself.”

“Oh SHIT!” Eds dropped a CD. He clumsily went and picked it up and lowered his voice. “What-What was in it?”

I gnawed at my lower lip and shrugged. “Nothing. I mean, not nothing. He ripped out some page from a planner. Just July 3rd.”

“So tomorrow.”

I nodded.

Eds struggled to get the CD back into its spot. “So. . .”

_Something bad was going to happen tomorrow on July 3rd, 1996._

He didn’t need to finish. We knew. We both knew. I didn’t say anything but hope he got that I agreed with him and all.

“What do you know about serial killers?” I asked.

“Nothing, but I feel like that’s a Mike Hanlon thing. That guy could write _Unsolved Mysteries_.”

“I don’t-I know who that is”

“You say that every single time. Mike. The kid on the farm. Works at the library and sometimes with the historical society. Lives on a farm. His dad has all this stuff on Derry being weird and I just feel like he might be into serial killers, too.”

“Ok, so, call him and ask him about like Charles Manson, Son of Sam, and John Wayne Gacy.”

“You go it, odd one.”

 _Focus_. Thoughts raced around again, and I ended up pulling my fingers through my hair. Pulling some strands free. Could feel and hear them pop. That or it was just stress fucking with my ability to focus. I almost found something else to pick up and joke about but that wasn’t the time. Focus needed to happen. I squeezed my eyes shut and counted down from five like if I counted down. I could do anything.

Five. Four. _What happened next?_ Three. _Did kids actually like clowns or was everybody scared of them? I’m scared._ Two. _Wonder what Eds made for dinner. I hope it’s good like salmon, but not really, salmon is grow._ One.

**Focused.**

“Um, so, ok. . .backing up, I think it was when I was there but I was in the house snooping around when the door handle giggled and I didn’t know where to go. I looked around spotting some pail on the ground. It stank of muddy water and I looked up. Hole in the ceiling and I moved a chair and climbed up toward it and did my best to hang tight. Probably need to go to the gym. But the door burst open, didn’t sound like keys were used or anything and some guy burst in, I didn’t really get a look at the guy, he looked like. . .a guy. No bodachs.”

“The whole time he was shouting ‘HOCKSTETTER!’ Thought I was going to die like my heart would give out because he had a gun, he was in the guy’s house with a gun but there weren’t any bodachs. He kept shouting, ‘HOCKSTETTER! I know you’re here.’ Guess he realized he got it all wrong and instead added, ‘I’ll get you later.’ Checked out in the backyard but by then I tried to pull myself through the ceiling, like it was that much of a dump. I got through that hole and waited up there. I could hear him stomping around and breaking some stuff before the door slammed shut all over again. He was gone. I waited a bit and now I’m here.”

By then Eds stood on the other side of the aisle staring at me through CDs. He still pressed his lips together and didn’t look ok. His nostrils were flaring a lot and his chest looked as if it couldn’t quite accept enough oxygen.

“What?” I asked.

“I don’t know? What if you. . .died?”

“But I didn’t. And no bodachs, right? I feel like if whoever that was and they were bad news, I’d see them.”

“What if they’re onto you?”

I snorted. “No.”

“But can we backtrack to the whole issue of. . .what if you died?”

My lips curled up while I squinted hard at him not sure if I could remember what words were. “I can’t die. Not yet.”

“Pretty sure any of us can casually die.”

“No, didn’t mean it like that.” I shook my head glad Eds never left too early and abandoned me when it took forever for me to get to the point. Beating around the bush was a whole art invented by moi. “I can die but I can’t die anytime soon. We’re destined to be together forever.”

“Right. Y-Yeah.” Eds struggled to take a deep, deep breath and looked at his wristwatch. “I have to-I have to go anyway.”

“Are you ok?”

“No. No, not ok.” Eds shook his head, pressed a hand to his chest. “It’s nothing.”

“Where’s your inhaler.”

“WORK!” he snapped. His hand flailed out accidentally hitting some CDs and he backed up. “Just please be careful. Zoltar could be a liar, it’s not like we actually know the guy.”

I followed him out of the store, we didn’t even buy anything. I didn’t say anything until he reached the ice cream place, wheezing loud enough for his coworkers to know what’s up. He walked behind the counter and paused looking at me.

Eds jabbed the air. “No more, hellmouths.”

“Yeah, you win, no more hellmouths.” I nodded in agreement. Still, we stood there about as awkward as ever. Eds was right there dying on his two feet and I almost walked straight into maybe a portal of hell but sure did walk right into danger. “Don’t forget to talk to Mike.”

“I won’t.”

Even though Eds stood in the same spot, probably about to be a few minutes late to the second part of his shift. A technicality. I took a few steps back shouting after him. “You’re my 42!”

Eds wheezed but still managed to throw out a laugh. He was there still wheezing away and rolled his eyes before turning around and leaving me. Time to go. Chances were, Mike Hanlon would have a lot of answers. Maybe he’d see some pattern I couldn’t but first, I needed to let Chief know what was up ‘cause he could station somebody out there or arrest Hockstetter although don’t think being creepy or weird would be an ok enough of a reason. I kept backing up looking at the pink and white ice cream place with all its weird revolving flavors making anybody into just vanilla pretty pissed about how it wasn’t ever an option.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like super injured myself and like tried to come back and edit this project and I don't know what happened so good luck.
> 
> Also everything is terrible, so once again, I'm asking you if you like this please drop a kudos or a comment or both. But if you don't like it, please forever hold your peace. (Also I'm nervous because I'm going for cute but don't know if I'm accomplishing it.)


	8. July 3 - 4:06 AM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie and Bev get rid of a body

# Present

### 4:06 AM on July 3

For a driver, Bev did a shit job of watching the road. She kept looking at me again and again and again while I sat there tapping my fingers along the window looking at not her. The whole time she’d been blasting some Alanis Morisette, which wasn’t really a good mood for a We’re-About-to-Hide-a-Body trip.

“I don’t like quiet Tozier.”

I glared at her.

“What? I don’t.”

“Thanks for the update.” I kept tapping all off-beat with the music.

She turned it down. We were pretty close by then. At least I wasn’t having any doubts about lopping her into the conversation because once we got Hockstetter into the back of her car she had one hell of a destination in mind, Church of the Whispering Comet. 

Church of the Whispering Comet had many lives. 

Its first and foremost was a state penitentiary, which bit the dust in 1971 after a riot killed some guards. Stayed open through some pretty insane escape attempts. Classic ones with people digging tunnels underneath to escape. After the riots and it bit the dust, somebody thought it’d be a great location for worship but nobody else agreed and the church became another business that bit the dust because it sounded more like a place you died when you drank kool-aid than Jesus wine blood. Didn’t help the lead priest man sold a lot of ecstasy, which if you ask me, is a better option than most priests make. A very much dead neon sign waited out front, somebody at another pointed tacked on ‘Topless Bar.’

But even then the Church of the Whispering Comet Topless Bar had a short life making way for the Adult Bookstore that just sold porn and nothing good, Eds and I went a few times to crack a few jokes but were pushed out. A no kids policy was utilized against us but Eds and I haven’t been kids for some time. The Church of the Whispering Comet Topless Bar, Adult Bookstore lived another life as Burger Heaven but it’s good fries couldn’t save it.

Bev parked outside the place. We stared at the crumbling building, it looked more like ruin porn than any of the well-meaning attempts at sexy porn it once held. We sat there. 

“Do you think they still have any cake crush porn left over?” I pretended to look at her but really it was Hockstetter who I eyed to make sure he wasn’t going to run away.

“Cake crush porn?” Bev bobbed her head like she’d unlock some definition there. “I don’t think that’s a thing.”

“It’s a thing. You know where like people in small outfits, sometimes wet from the rain start stomping and crushing the cake and smashing it in their faces and somebody has to lick it off and then they start doing it in the cake.”

Bev stared at me. “You made that up.”

I did leave Hockstetter alone for a second. “No, I didn’t it’s a thing.”

“I feel like that’s not safe! What about yeast infections?”

“I don’t think men get that.” Those words slipped from me faster than I realized.

“ _Richie_.” Shit. Whatever she had to say, I didn’t hear. We were stuck in the car with a dead man in the back and staring at one another. “Men can get yeast infections. Like I need you to repeat that after me, Men can get yeast infections.”

“Men can get yeast infections.”

“Men can get yeast infections.”

I looked over my shoulder still afraid Hockstetter would climb up and out of his sheets. Good thing his ghost wasn’t around ‘cause he’d hear us just saying back and forth to each other yeast infection talk. 

But back to the actual problem at hand. Somebody shot him with one purpose and that purpose wasn’t to stop what he was about to do. Guess he didn’t work alone. Bev looked back with me. Both of us being real fucking quiet while sitting there, music no longer playing in the back round and car no longer running.

“Please say something,” Bev whispered.

“Men can get yeast infections.”

“Anything but that, I think we’ve made that clear and I’m having a bad night, just learned ghosts are real and there’s a dead man in the back of my car!”

“You think you’re having a bad night?” I retorted still looking at the body. “Somebody tried to frame me for murder.”

“Sorry that you had to win this round of shitty nights.” 

Bev climbed out, fingers shaking until she lit up a cigarette and breathed in some bonafide nicotine-induced dopamine. Eds always asked me to quit smoking and I’d done a good job of somewhat quitting for two years. 

I climbed out popping the trunks looking to her for help. Bev tossed her cigarette to the side, crunching it before we added accidental arson to our list of misdeeds. Together we hauled Hockstetter out from her car and toward The Church of the Whispering Comet Topless Bar, Adult Bookstore, Burger Heaven. I

We struggled across broken rocks, bird bones, crumbling stairs, and more as we made our way toward the old gas chamber. Seemed right. People died there and Hockstetter was dead. We struggled to get the body in there, gas making it sound like Hockstetter was farting nonstop. The moment I let go I took off coming close to tripping over some broken pieces from the floor above. I almost puked everywhere but managed to swallow it. Don’t leave evidence. Can’t leave evidence. 

“You owe me a burger,” Bev commented.

No wait, I couldn’t. I puked over dead ladybugs. Somehow they ended up all piled outside the gas chamber like it’d been their last attempt to crawl free from cyanide. aI wiped my mouth and tried to knock some pieces over the mess I made before turning around to see her looking all worried. “I throw up when I’m nervous.”

“How will you ever be a standup comic?”

“One with signs warning about a splash zone.”

“That’s disgusting.” Bev struggled back up the stairs. Pieces of wood from the steps fell away. I wiped my mouth again. “I still stand by needing you to buy me a burger.”

“Ok, but how can you think about food right now?”

It was almost as if we never hid a body and were back in the car. Somebody framed me and I had no idea who Hockstetter was working with. It felt like today I was worried about tomorrow but seeing how it was early in the morning, it was tomorrow. We were living in tomorrow and whatever was gonna happen was still gonna happen and I had no big bad to worry about.

Bev started the car. “Because I’m hungry.”

“Like right now?”

“No! Whenever you’re at work. Jesus Christ, what kind of person do you think I am?”

I stared out her windshield at The Church of the Whispering Comet Topless Bar, Adult Bookstore, Burger Heaven and managed a shrug even though every single part of me wanted to sleep. “Somebody who doesn’t ask a lot of questions.”

“Unfortunately.” Without any music, Bev started to head back toward Derry. We did what we had to do and I didn’t look back because focus needed to happen now. Tomorrow was today and I needed to figure out the true big bad.

What if I couldn’t stop it?


	9. July 2 - 4:44 PM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter Ben Hanscom.
> 
> Also Richie crashes Chief's party where he finds Henry Bowers, Vic Criss, and Betty Ripsom all hanging out.

# Memory #3

### 4:44 PM on July 2

Ben Hanscom was a person full of surprises. One being the fact he listened to any music I suggested. Our paths crossed enough that I decided one day we should be friends. It seemed like such a distant memory, I couldn’t remember who introduced us but there came a random day where Eds was too busy with Sonia and all my other friends were busy so I invited Ben to go to the movies to see _Night Life_ only to run into Bev Marsh along the way. Another person I rarely spoke to but invited her out with us even though we joked the entire time we were on the date. Bev and I laughed the whole time watching high school zombies while Ben, well, it turned out Ben did not have the stomach for horror.

But by the time I made it to his place after spotting and stalking Hockstetter, Ben put on some music either because he listened to it casually or because he wanted to impress me. I could hear it popping right outside his place while I knocked on the door.

When Ben opened up, I pretended to have one of those generic radio voices like I was Wolfman Jack from _American Graffiti_ or really, real life. 

“And now for something totally different. Here we feature dead rock musicians on Richie’s All Dead Rock Show but today we instead feature Oingo Boingo’s lead man Danny Elfman who may sing about dead man’s parties but is not a dead man himself or is he?”

“Hey Rich,” was all Ben said while looking at me.

“Probably not because the dead do not speak.”

Ben looked a bit bridled and ready to challenge me but I think he always knew something was up. Pretty much everybody did. I didn’t go around yelling to the world often, I SEE DEAD PEOPLE! But guess people sensed it. That and I told Eds, Chief, and Karla some of my life and once or twice I probably gave away too much information for Ben who was calculating in the nicest way possible. Not the evil villain way, but he calculated all information he said, stored it away, and remembered it for later. 

“I got what you want.”

“Ah thanks, Benny.”

“Don’t. . .Don’t call me that.”

“Why? Your mom does. She told me last night,” I said following him inside. 

I kicked back on one of the couches in the first room. Him and his mom still lived together but probably because she was about as ok as a parent could be. Not a great one. Nice but she let some fatphobia come in between her and Ben. She must’ve been at work because a bottle of wine sat out in the living room with two pint glasses. Society said neither were meant for wine but I felt like Ben was just the kind of guy who took his wine in a pint glass or mug.

Ben returned holding onto a little velvet bag. He watched me studying the label on the wine bottle. I lifted it up raising an eyebrow. “Company?”

We traded objects, Ben took the wine from me and handed me the velvet bag. “You’re the company.”

“Thought you would’ve been seducing a nice lady.” I opened the velvet bag pulling out what almost looked more like scrap metal. Ben took his spare time from college work to make jewelry. An odd hobby but not as odd as mine. Also, more profitable. “There are plenty of great women in town, I’m sure of it like. . .Bronwen.”

“Who’s Bronwen?”

“I don’t know, I just hoped you’d know a Bronwen.”

“Rich. . .I don’t think anybody’s named Bronwen.”

“I’m pretty sure there’s a Bronwen out there and she’s the nicest person in the world.”

Ben ignored me as he poured me a pint of wine. I took it from him close to laughing because really? 

“Well, unfortunately, my only company tonight is just the only guy in Derry who has a soulmate.”

“Cheers to that.” We tapped our glasses together and he sat down in some loveseat across from me. I sipped some wine but it was all bitter and sour reminding me of Hockstetter out there and his serial killer shrine. Instead, I held up the necklace Ben made per my request. “I didn’t mean an anatomical heart but like enough to cover one.”

A metal heart dangled from the chain, it was still pretty large though. I put it on looking down at how it fell.

“I think I really didn’t understand what you meant by that,” said Ben while enjoying his wine. “It doesn’t really suit you or Ed.”

I took the necklace off returning it to the velvet bag. “It’s for Chief.”

“As in Chief Porter Chief?”

“The one and only or at least the one and only currently in Derry, Maine.”

Some wine shot through Ben’s nose when he choked on a sip. He put his pint glass down and I pushed mine toward him ‘cause not interested. “Why?” He paused looking at me in that like studying sort of way. Ben’s a real smart kid, too. He could look at any sort of building and understand its structure and maybe he could do that with people. “. . .Is something going to happen?”

I stood up because there were places to go and places to be, but before I could move, I almost tripped over some casual fear. Out of the corner of my eye, I realized we're being watched by none other than Hockstetter. Good thing Ben’s back was to him. He sat there looking at me trying to figure what was up while Hockstetter and I locked eyes. Didn’t mean for it to happen, but he stood right outside looking in at us and as soon as I moved, our eyes ended up meeting.

“No.”

“Wait, where are you going?”

I headed toward the door. When I held the doorknob, I braced myself because on the other side I might meet a punch to the face or a bullet to the gut. Some reason, without opening the door I did look over at Ben again. In reality, I did so in an attempt to spot Hockstetter all over again but found him gone.

Fuck. 

“I lied. Yeah, something bad is gonna happen.” I opened the door, nobody out there. I looked at Ben trying for my best reassuring smile. “But I’m gonna sure as hell stop it.” 

Ben sat there watching me go, he shouted after me, “Good luck!”

###

“Richard Tozier!” Karla half yelled and half laughed when she opened the door to find me standing outside. “You better be stopping by for fun and not any of your. . .you know.”

I smiled at Karla and lifted the bag from Ben’s. “I come bearing gifts. . .”

“And I’m assuming bad news.” She scowled at me, still somewhat laughing. She threw her arms around me, hugging me. I almost lost my gift for Chief but hugged her back before she led me inside. “We’re out back celebrating an early fourth of July.”

Some reason _The Chain_ by Fleetwood Mac played bothering me, a weird echo from my own past. 

_Listen to the wind blow, watch the sunrise. Running in the shadows, damn your love, damn your lie._

The song was ominous as fuck as I followed Karla out onto the back porch where some food on the grill sizzled. Meanwhile, Henry Bowers is sitting around with Betty Ripsom who I forgot existed until that moment. Also, the new officer is joining them. He’s standing around while chatting with them, beer already in hand.

“Oh my God! Richie!” chimed Betty. She looked back up at the new guy. “Vic, this is the strangest person you’ll ever meet.”

“Also the most obnoxious,” Bowers added with an eye roll and a swig of beer.

“Tozier!” Chief turned from the grill wearing one of those iconic ‘Kiss the Cook’ aprons. Karla got it for him and thought she was so hilarious. “I hope you’re not here to ruin my night.”

“Ruin the night?” Vic, the new guy looked around at everybody but me for some answers. “What? What’s he going to do?”

“Bombard us with a million different bad impressions.” Bettie laughed. She went to clink her beer bottle with Bowers who didn’t acknowledge her. Instead, he watched me as I came further onto the porch. “Richie, this is Vic and Vic this is Richie. He’s new to Derry. Do your Al Capone impression like him in _Scarface_.”

“None of what you just said is accurate.”

“Oh just do it.”

Nope. I turned my full attention to Chief and held up the velvet bag. “Here to ruin the night, but not with _good_ impressions.”

“He’s really gotten better,” Karla told Betty.

Chief shook his head handing a spatula to Karla, he kissed her real quick on the lips before walking over to me. “Figures you wouldn’t ever just show up for dinner.”

“Eds and I have dinner plans in the belfry.”

Chief steered me away toward the edge of the porch. Vic and Bowers watched us knowing something was up. Just the other day I showed up again pointing out a murderer nobody had any idea about. “I’m not even going to ask about what that’s supposed to mean.” We were off to the side in a semi-private conversation. Bettie started chatting with Vic again while Bowers kept an eye on us. 

“So what’s so important that you had to come here and ruin my little party?”

Before speaking up, I looked over to see Bowers still watching us but he jerked his attention away pretending he was drinking and listening to Betty talk the whole time. First, I handed the velvet bag to Chief. He opened it raising an eyebrow at the heart necklace. 

“It’s for. . .your heart, it wasn’t supposed to be a heart,” I told him. “You should wear it.”

“Gotta say, I’m not really a necklace person.”

“Yeah, but you gotta trust me. Wear it.” And I watched Chief drop it back into the little velvet bag and set it off to the side. Rather than comment on it, I tried my best to fill Chief in on everything about Hockstetter from his name to where he lived and simply that he was a threat even though the entire time Chief didn’t look like he believed any of it. “You have to believe me.”

Chief put a hand on my should and smiled. “I do, you’re rarely wrong about these things, but I’m having a date night with Karla so I’ll have to ruin Bowers’ or Criss’ night.”

“Who’s Chris?”

“Vic Criss.” Chief pointed at the new guy who probably heard his name or had been eavesdropping on us all along because he waved. “New hire. Be nice to him.”

It looked like Chief was about to go off and talk to one of them without his necklace so I grabbed it again handing it to him all over again. “Don’t forget to wear this.”

Chief held it up smiling. “I don’t want to believe that but will. Now go have spaghetti or whatever with Eddie.”

“No, his-his nickname is Eddie Spaghetti. We’re having sandwiches, not pasta in the belfry.”

Chief let go of my shoulder backing over to Bowers and Vic. “Again, I’m just gonna ignore that. Stay out of trouble Richie.” I watched him kneel down beside Bowers whispering something to him before taking him off to the side while Betty and Vic continued to talk. Chief went inside with Bowers for an actual conversation. I stood in the same spot watching them through the big windows. Soon Chief returned, but Bowers didn’t. “We’ll put an APB out for Hockstetter and keep somebody out of his place.” He made his way to the grill and I stayed in one place. Ok. Improvement. I improved something, probably. I scanned the porch seeing how alone we all were. It was just Chief, Karla, Vic Criss, Betty Ripsom, and Henry Bowers’ half empty beer bottle left behind. No bodachs. No danger lurking out of sight for them.

“Thanks!” I shouted heading back inside.

Only Karla followed me. She leaned into the sliding doors. “Hey Richie!”

I looked back at her.

“Really, please be careful.”

I smiled. “Will do. I’m gonna fix this.”

“Figured, I believe in you. Gut also tell Eddie hi for me and demand more dinners with you two at the Porter household and not at the church.”

I backed up waving to her. “I can’t make any promises but I’ll try.”

“You better! You make me feel like I’m some awful mother-in-law.”

She disappeared and I stood there chuckling at the idea before taking off to go meet Eddie. There weren’t even bodachs slinking around outside and no Hockstetter hiding in the bushes. Bowers car was gone, he probably was out and ready to follow through all Chief told him. Maybe we’d all end up ok tomorrow. July 3rd was coming no matter what, but that didn’t mean it had to be a date of infamy. Already I promised _But I’m gonna sure as hell stop it_ , such bold and brief words that continue to haunt me to this day and I even promised Karla _I’m gonna fix this_.

Both times, all those words, I really believed in them, and yet, I ended up being half right by them.


	10. July 3 - 5:11 AM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie gets some really bad news.

# Present

### 5:11 AM on July 3

Again having a quiet Tozier in the car made Beverly Marsh a bad driver. Yet somehow with her looking at me nonstop, we never killed a person or an animal. Neither were really out and about though. She broke the silence by the time we made it to Derry.

“So. . .you and Eddie? Are you two like. . .dating?”

“Why?” I glanced at her. “You interested in dating him?”

Bev snorted. “No.”

“Oh, wait, I’m sorry but did my brand new partner in crime just insult my boyfriend?”

Only Bev chuckled. “I knew it! I knew it! I knew you were gay!”

“That-That’s what you got out of that? What if I was Bi? Pan? Ace? There’s many sexualities out there, Ringwald.”

She sat a bit too long at a stop sign just nodding to herself while going over some sort of details in her head. “How long?”

“I don’t know. Eight or nine years, maybe longer. We have matching birthmarks.”

“You do _not_.” Bev needed to eye me to see if I was telling the truth or not. Nobody could ever tell though. “No way! So you guys are the real deal like actual soulmates.”

“Yeah.” I smiled. “Together forever.” I shot a pretend scowl in her direction. “So he’s off the market.”

Bev lifted her hands off the steering wheel at a whole other stop sign. “Full stop, no offense. I couldn’t date anybody shorter than me.”

“It’s not your fault society has made you a bad person.”

For the first time, I saw Bev smile. Like actually smile, which made me realize how sad she’d been all the times we shared brief words together. “Besides, I think there’s somebody else.”

“So you do _love_ Eddie? Bev!” I leaned back in my seat putting my feet up on the dashboard, which forced her to whack the bottom of my shoe. “You’re making me jealous!”

“Oh stop it and if you really wanted to know, the first time we met I had this whole like baby man-crush on you for three seconds.”

I laughed, pushing my glasses up the bridge of my nose. “I don’t think I really even know what that’s supposed to mean. Baby man crush?”

“Don’t worry about it. As soon as you opened your mouth you killed any chance.”

“Bev, _Bev_ , I’m about to be very serious with you.”

It wasn’t like there was a stop sign or light up ahead. Even if it were a light, they all flashed yellow ‘cause it was too early for any real traffic out in Derry. But she looked at me waiting for me to say what I needed to say and man, she was in for a surprise I guess.

“You never had a chance. You have one wonderful face, but I’ve known you for about eight years or less and in case you can’t do math right, I told you Eds and I’ve been together for longer than that. I was already taken.”

“Wow,” whispered Bev. “Wooooow. Just wow.”

I never even got the chance to ask her who she had a crush on. The few times I visited her place, there was some bent up postcard she held onto. Had it framed like our card from Zoltar. The **You are destined to be together forever** to her **Hair like winter fire**. It looked really fucking old but I guess whoever wrote it to her held her attention throughout all these years. Anyway, I never got the chance to ask her who she had a crush on because we pulled up at our apartments to see my own lifelong crush.

To be honest, I needed to look at the clock because it was pretty close to 5:30 in the morning and yet Eddie Kaspbrak sat out on my apartment steps. It looked like he’d been praying, shedding tears for some Saint or Jesus or however that worked. When Eds spotted us, his folded hands fell from his tear-stained face. As Bev shut off the car, Eds rose to his feet shaking his head the whole time looking at us. Bev kept her headlights on while he continued to stand there, three steps up from the bottom.

Bev side-eyed me while she looked at the steering wheel. “Maybe you should go out first.”

But I didn’t want to move even as Eds stepped off into the ground. Still, I unbuckled and climbed out of her car. Fixed my glasses while I stood so close to her door. I kicked it shut before walking over to him managing my best smile.

“Can’t believe I’m being blessed by your presence,” I laughed.

Except Eds stood there about as noiseless as any ghost I ever met. He shook his head, tears still streaming down his face. His eyes were already all red and puffy. If he died, I’d never hear his voice again, which felt ridiculous. I could commune with ghosts, but never not really and Eds couldn’t even be dead. Zoltar said so himself, **You are destined to be together forever.**

“What’s wrong?” I laughed again, the nervous sort though. Dug my fingers deep into my jean pockets. Behind us, Bev closed her door startling us even though she tried to be quiet. “Eds, are you. . .” _dead_. Because as soon as the thought bombarded me I couldn’t strip it free from my anxiety.

Still, noiseless Eds shook his head, not helping his case. He opened his mouth and spoke up though because together forever. “Richie.” The way he said it almost made me feel like he said _Richard_. Straight to business.

I chuckled again and still kept up my smile. “What?”

Eds tilted his head to the side and Bev never moved from her car.

“What’s wrong?”

“Chief Porter is in the hospital. Somebody shot him. It’s bad.”

Echoes of my dream startled me. Pain, a lot of pain, but not from the dream. I backed up in an attempt to find my balance because his words knocked me all off-kilter. But Eds said hospital, _hospital_ , alive people go to the hospital. Not dead people. So Chief had to be alive? Right? Right?! Right. But people die in hospitals all the time. 

Eds tried to catch me, he failed though. I hit the ground but all I wanted to do was sit there and try to think through everything. I needed to dislodge myself again from time. We lost our big bad and now-and now-and now. . .

“What hospital?”

“I’ll drive!” Bev shouted from her car. She climbed back in letting it stutter to life.

Meanwhile, Eds knelt in front of me even though he never seemed quite there because again and again and again, I thought about me being shot, me being shot in my dream and Stan asking me about his own dream. He saw his own face and he saw others but he never saw Chief or me, which maybe meant. . .

“How?”

“I don’t know. Karla’s been trying to call you all night. Me, too. When neither of us could get a hold of you I came over, but you were gone.”

“When?”

“Maybe, I don’t know. Maybe a few hours ago. Or, I don’t know.” Time moved funny before sunrise. “After three. . .Richie, what the fuck happened to you? Where’d you go?”

I snapped my attention up to him. I forgot. I’d been hit by a car but his words hurt worse. Dead people don’t go to hospitals. They don’t. Chief wasn’t dead. If he died, I’d see him around. Right? “Um, Bowers accidentally hit me with a car.”

“Accidentally? Bowers? Henry Bowers accidentally hit you with a car?” Eds shook his head. He pushed my glasses up like I did whenever I got all jittery and nervous. “Doesn’t sound like an accident.”

“No, it was. It was more like I accidentally hit his car with my body.”

“We’re talking about Henry Bowers though?”

“Shut up, just shut up, ok?!” I snapped at him. Without me needing to say anything else, Eds helped me up so we could go in the car. He put me in the back before taking Bev’s passenger seat to help out with directions. With no protection. I laid back there. Stared up at Bev’s ceiling glad nobody could see me back there crying. I kept quiet as possible but they’d know with my glasses all fogged up but the whole idea of not being able to see felt nicer than anything.


	11. July 2 - 11:30 PM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie and Eddie go bowling.
> 
> There they run into Stan.
> 
> And they also run into Henry Bowers.

# Memory #4

### 11:30 PM on July 2

“What the actual fuckity fuck!” I yelled and yelled too loud because some woman shot me a dirty look, didn’t matter. What mattered was the fact my bowling ball ended up in the gutter all over _again_ like it was more magnetic than my psychic magnetism. Behind me Eds cackled about the predicament and I spun around to look at him coming close to face plant because of our stupid flat shoes out there. “Shut up! It’s not funny!”

“But it is _hilarious_! And sorry, but you’ve never been this hilarious before.”

I looked over my shoulder to see all my bowling pins knocked over by the machines living in the floors. Not by me. By the time I came back, Eds stood there holding his hand above the little fan waiting for the lane to clear while the ball he selected hung around there.

“You’re the worst,” I told him before sitting down in the small ring of chairs in our ring.

“Wrong again, you’re the worst. Look at that data up there.” He pointed at a screen where he’d been writing out the score all along. I was pretty far behind but it was more like the time held my attention seeing how close we were to midnight. 

July 3rd was coming.

Already Eds stood at the top of the lane holding up a lime green ball he insisted would bring him luck. He squinted real hard at the bowling pins before swinging his arm back and releasing the ball. It soared forward hitting all the pins at once. He leaped up screaming looking back at me.

Even I hopped out of my seat, “HOLY FUCK!” I jotted his score down as he made his way back to me looking at the sheet. While he stood so close there I pinched his side.

“Ow!” He swatted my hand away from him.

“What? I was trying to get lucky.”

“By this point, you know all you have to do is ask.”

I snorted. “Touche.” Our eyes met in a beat of silence where balls and pins exploded around us and to change up the moment, I took a step away from him. Need to focus. “I’m gonna go get us some drinks.”

“I want a Long Island Iced Tea.”

“I don’t have money.” Still, I backed up watching Eds prep to play again with his little bowling ritual. “Cheap beer it is.”

“It’s your fault you don’t have money!”

I cut across the floor of the bowling alley outside the lanes. We ended up there on Eds’ scooter, which had been my fault. Not a thought was put into after we made a run for it from the church. There were two other people hanging around the bar, not a lot of people were out. I kept scanning the employees there thinking of me and Stan and our memories of gunshots ringing out in dreams. Their bowling employees were green polo shirts with khakis and everybody here had red polo shirts. I knew it before we came in because I called them at some point during the day too stuck on the idea of dreams becoming reality after spotting Hockstetter.

The bartender was busy cleaning a pint glass while he peered at me. I waved to him. “Two PBRs please.”

“ID,” he replied.

I plucked my wallet out and showed it to him. It was a lie though. The bartender put his stuff down to take it from me. He looked at the ID then up at me then back down at the ID.

“Anthony Torrance?”

“Yeah? What? No PBR? Anything else works.”

“How about Pepsi?” He took my ID.

“Hey! I need that!”

But the bartender pulled out two glasses and instead poured us some soda. “I don’t think so, Mr. Tozier.”

“Ah c’mon, Mr. Tozier is my dad.”

“It’s also unfortunately on you.” The bartender put the two sodas in front of me. “On the house. Tell Wyatt thanks for the tip.”

“Jeez.” I took our drinks and turned around to find Stanley Uris standing right in my path. His presence startled me real bad. He was noiseless, existing there, in a green polo and khaki pants. Stan wasn’t really there but Pepsi was really all over my shirt and pants and sinking into my shoes. “Jesus, Mary, and Josef Stalin!”

“We need to talk,” Stan said because it was Stan, really, Stan standing around in _the_ bowling alley uniform of the alley.

“I don’t wanna talk.” I looked up to see Eds waving to us and pointing at the scoreboard. Two strikes and then he didn’t do too well after that. It also was my turn. Each explosion of pins rocked my heart. I needed to put the glasses down before I dropped them. Already the bartender took them handing off napkins.

July 3rd was coming. It was coming fast. I had no idea what Hockstetter had planned (of course at the time I didn’t know he was dead yet), but it was coming. People were going to die.

I picked up two new Pepsis but at least Eds scooted over to us. “Stan!” he chimed before taking a soda from me. “What’s this? A rum and coke.”

“No coke, only Pepsi.”

Eds laughed and started to drink then frowned. “Oh wait. . .”

In unison, we said, “Only Pepsi.”

“You two are the worst,” muttered Stan. 

Eds looked like he was about to say something when Pepsi shot through his nose. He started to choke on his drink, wheezing real loud like his asthma could overcome the _bang_ , _bang_ , _bang_ of the bowling alley. If anybody opened fired, we’d know too late. Too late. I looked at a clock. Five minutes to midnight. 

_Bang_ , _bang_ , _bang_.

“STANLEY!” Eds shouted.

“He knows?” Stan pointed at him. “He knows. Rich. . .do you-do you see death on me?”

 _Bang_ , _bang_ , _bang_.

But we were alone. About as alone as people could be in a bowling alley like that. People playing all around with nonstop explosions. There weren't any bodachs, which meant whatever was going to happen wasn’t about to happen at the stroke of midnight.

“You should listen to Richie,” Eds whispered. “Did you have any plans for tomorrow?”

“I don’t know, I mean, I do know. Mike and I are going to the movies for his birthday.”

I interrupted, “Tell us about your dream again or tell me and let Eds hear for the first time. He might notice something.”

 _Bang_ , _bang_ , _bang_.

“Um, I’m there and I can see my face and Mike are dead and people wearing. . .” He signaled to his uniform. “But I feel like it didn’t start there? Before I was walking through something and I could hear a lot of people whispering and then people all cheering or laughing together with some other loud noise I couldn’t really figure out then gunshots and then we’re dead.”

“WAIT!” Eds yelled. He got the bartender to stop. “Um, sorry. We’re good.” He looked back at us. “You said people whispering?” Stan nodded. “And people laughing and weird noises and you already said you’re going to the movies tomorrow?”

“Um, yeah.”

“When?” Eds looked at me, his eyes bulging with sheer panic.

There was a lot I’d give to not be having this conversation. I’d rather us just go to the bowling alley, run into Stan, have him complain about the new uniform, Eds compliment him because Stan does look pretty good in green but then feel a little jealous over the compliment. To be bowling with Stan and all of us making jokes about something or teasing each other over weird things like Eds always thinking he’s about to die of some weird sickness, Stan going birding whenever he had a chance, and my obscure fear of werewolves. Normal music would be playing, something else for me to mock but out of appreciation like we were standing there listening to _Sabotage_ by The Beastie Boys, a perfectly normal song even with all the loud _bang_ , _bang_ , _bangs_. Thought it wouldn’t hit the same way.

“A little before noon, after my shift at the grille although Bill said I could leave a little earlier.”

I cut back in no longer in our weird fantasy of pseudo-normalcy. “Don’t go.”

“What?” replied Stan.

“I said, don’t go. Do something else. Don’t tell Mike. Just. . .don’t go to that movie. Go apple picking or shopping at the mall. Anything but the movies.”

“If you go to the mall I’ll give you free ice cream.” Eds offered the most uncomforting, comforting smile.

Stan nodded, he got it. I didn’t need to say it loud and clear. If he went to the movie, he’d die.

Noon on July 3rd seemed about as ominous as possible.

“Look.” Eds pointed at the clock. I almost squeezed my eyes shut expecting the whole place to implode or aliens instead to show up and abduct us all for like some probing shit. Midnight happened and the only continued _bang_ , _bang_ , _bang_ was bowling lanes and not gunfire. “We’re ok.”

“For now,” muttered Stan.

“We’ll be fine,” I retorted. “Don’t go to the movies.”

“Yeah, I got it. Free ice cream and apple picking, but don’t tell anybody.”

“And don’t wear that tomorrow.” I put my soda down on the bar and took Eds from him to add it. “We. . .we have to go.”

“But what about our game?” Eds pointed at our lane.

“What about it? You won. We should go celebrate.”

Eds pointed at himself. “Do I have to ask if I’m getting lucky or will it be a surprise?”

Stans sighed, he rolled his eyes but I could see a faint smile from him. “You guys are too weird. Just. . .stay safe.”

In reality, I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t take it anymore. After each loud _bang_ pain blossomed in my chest. Growing and growing knowing that whatever was about to happen needed to be stopped and I needed to stop it. Couldn’t let Stan or Mike die or anybody else. Me included. I ran my hand over my gut where the bullet hit me. Still, I didn’t bring it up to Eds that I too saw my own death in a sea of people begging me for their lives. 

Outside the parking lot was pretty quiet with cars in every other spot. We made our way toward the edge to Eds’ scooter. It waited out there. Not too far a cop car was parked near the sign for the bowling alley and Bowers stood there, he leaned into the car waving to us when he spotted us.

“Don’t talk to him, he’s a dick,” Eds muttered.

“People change,” I attempted to argue and walked over with Eds following us.

“Riiiichie!”

Bowers took a clipboard off the top of the cop car holding up a photograph of Hockstetter. “Sorry for interrupting. . .” he paused looking between us sneering “. . .friendship night.”

“We prefer the term Bro Night,” I corrected.

“That’s-That’s a lie,” Eds piped up.

“Riiiiight.” Bowers kept holding up the photo of Hockstetter. “Chief Porter said this is the guy you saw at the church, right?”

“Yeah, that’s him,” I said.

“Yup,” lied Eds, but I didn’t know it at the time. “I’d never forget a face that ugly.”

Bowers shot him such a dirty look.

“I’m sorry. Sorry.”

But Bowers carried on with the conversation. He pointed at the scooter. “Saw that you guys were here and wanted to double-check that you are sure you saw this man earlier?”

“Yeah, around six. We were having a picnic at the church and we saw him running at the building. We were up in the church tower. But it was definitely him.” 

Bowers hummed and looked at the photo. “Cool, just wanted to check. Chief Porter has Criss stationed outside his place and wanted me to check up on you two. Are you ok? Feeling in danger?”

Eds shrugged and I stared at Bowers. “I saw him earlier, too. Before I met up with you guys at Chief’s. He was watching me at Ben Hanscom’s place.”

“Before the barbecue?” Bowers raised an eyebrow. “Really?” I only nodded and pushed back on Eds hoping to exit the conversation to the scooter. “Wow, that’s a lot. Well, guess it makes sense then because Chief Porter asked us to have somebody stationed outside of. . .” Without saying Eds, he just pointed like that would help out. “He said you’d be there for. . . _Bro Night_.”

“Cool, thanks, bye!” I said but Eds didn’t budge. I looked at him. “What?”

“When did you get that tattoo?” He pointed at Bowers’ wrist as Bowers put the clipboard back up on the cop car.

Bowers looked at it and pulled his shirt up a bit. Right there was a thick black tattoo that almost looked like a Chinese character or a crooked T, both capital and lowercase at the same time with a little hat on it. There was almost something familiar about the look of it. Not something I could define while looking at it yet couldn’t ever recall Bowers having a tattoo.

Yet it got a good chuckle from Bowers, “Believe it or not I used to run with a pretty rough gang back in the day, did a lot of things I regret, and we all had matching tattoos.”

“Things you regret?” Me being me couldn’t help but blurt out my exact thoughts. “Like calling us fag, tripping us in the hallway, carving your name into Ben Hanscom’s stomach?” Just again. All those thoughts right there. “Chasing me through a department store out of all places in an attempt to beat me up.”

That didn’t get a chuckle from Bowers. Instead, he just said, “Yes.” And covered up the tattoo. “Sorry about all. . . _that_.”

“SO!” Eds yelled. He didn’t need to because it was just us, Bowers, and cars in the parking lot. “We’re going to go now to continue our. . .Bro Night. . .elsewhere.”

Bowers stood there, he opened his car door dropping the clipboard. “Give us a call if you see that guy again. Sounds like he’s dangerous. Probably not too smart if you two idiots keep seeing him.”

No comment from us. Instead, Eds got on first and started up his scooter. I climbed onto the back wrapping my hands around his waist. We did not wait to see Bowers’ next move and pulled out of the parking lot. Still clinging tight to him for life and love, I leaned my chin on his shoulder while we were at a stoplight. “Ready to go continue Bro Night at your place?”

Eds shook his head. “I really hate you.”

“What? No way, you know that’s a lie.”

“It’s a fucking fact, Richie!” He started driving again. The scooter was a scooter so it wasn’t too loud but I couldn’t hear him laugh, I could feel him laugh. I kept my chin on his shoulder glad nobody else was out and about. It was midnight. People wanted to sleep and save up their energy for the following day of July 4th. 

July 3rd meant nothing but something for us. 

I clung a little tighter to Eds. But I’d stop it. Whatever it was ready to pounce on us. The whole night around us was pretty quiet. We drove past the canal, no ghosts were out and no bodachs either. We really were alone enough to continue ‘Bro Night.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. That's the last memory and now heading on towards the main event.


	12. July 3 - 5:43 AM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A near death.
> 
> A hospital visit.
> 
> A very much death.

# Present

### 5:43 AM on July 3

Little thought went into how I approached the situation. Just tossed open the doors at the hospital. One came close to hitting me in the face and the other one hit Eds in the face. Good thing his nose didn’t get all bloody. Ahead of us stood Vic Criss who appeared to be pacing around yet he whirled around aiming a pistol at the three of us because Bev came inside, too. When he looked at me he lowered the weapon.

“Sorry, sorry, you just. . .startled me.” Vic stared at us or really just me. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

I thought about punching him in the face because he stood between me and Chief. Guess Eds read into the moment cause he caught me by the wrist. Though Karla came out of the door shouting, “RICHIE!” She sobbed. I thought I wouldn’t sob, but I sure did. Tears already fogging up my glasses, Eds holding me by the wrist still as I used my free hand to hug Karla. “Oh Richie, Richie. . .Richie. . .” She peeled away a bit struggling to stop crying enough to speak. “You saved his life?”

“ _I_ saved his life?” Didn’t even make sense. I wasn’t there. Instead, I was outside Derry with Bev hiding a gunshot stranger while a gunshot friend almost lost his life. What had happened was Chief answered the phone before he answered the door. Whoever wanted me out of the picture might’ve wanted to trick Chief. Knowing we were connected, faking my fear and that I stood at the door. Then Chief opened the door with the bang, bang, bang of gunshots.

Karla stood there holding up the necklace Ben Hanscome made. Two full dents and one-half dent right at the edge. My shaking hand took it from her while Bev muttered _Holy shit_ behind me. I stared at the half dent before looking back up at Karla who tried to smile at me but all her tears kept getting in the way.

“What-What happened to this one?” I poked the edge.

“That’s the one they’re trying to get out,” whispered Karla.

“But he’s ok?” interrupted Eds still hanging onto me. The whole time his hold tightened on me. “Right? Chief Porter is ok, right?”

Karla pressed her lips together unable to stop any of her tears. Her response was a nod. No promises could be made in the halls of a hospital. Chief was about to fight real hard for his own life and I stood there with his makeshift heart dangling in my hands. For some reason, I handed it off to Eds who let go of me for the first time since entering the hallway. He let it weigh down his palms before putting it around his neck, it dangled a little below his heart seeing he was a tad bit shorter than Chief and by _tad bit_ I mean a lot.

Right beside us, Vic moved to answer his radio. Somebody called over it and I watched him. He answered, giving us an awkward look. Didn’t need to explain it. I got it. I knew it somehow. Another death, but this one by accidental shooting, unlike the night’s first two victims. Just this time around, Betty Ripsom was dead. At some point, she left Chief’s with Vic. He said he dropped her off at her place but other people said that never happened. No Betty ever came home. Somewhere between Chief’s and her front door, Betty disappeared into the sunset to be found again in the night.

Eds moved closer to me not getting the situation. He tugged at my sleeve because apparently Karla had been speaking for some time, too. She wanted us to leave and visit again in the morning. Reassured me it was best to stay with Eds for what was left of our morning before work started up again.

Radio said something-something about Bowers going to the scene. What he’d find was Betty Ripsom, dead by accident, chased by rabid dogs, some guy tried his best to help but he shot her by accident. When we later drove past the scene, I looked out unable to recognize his face. But he was there and Betty wasn’t really there anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think anybody is really enjoying this (but I am) so if you are please drop a note.
> 
> Otherwise, I'm really here to say I may need to take a break because somehow I've managed to catch scarlet fever three times this year and am _exhausted_ beyond belief. There's a lot though that I still have already written so that may help with future updates but until I catch up. . .I might need to sleep.
> 
> My goal is to get the next scene up here because it's full of like teeth rotting fluff or maybe it's not because I went crazy thanks to scarlet fever.


	13. July 3 - 6:37 AM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some cuddling happens (I think).

### 6:37 AM on July 3

Time moved in such strange ways. 

To think, the second Hockstetter walked into Derry Grille everything changed and we weren’t really even 24 hours into that whole new set schedule. Getting close. And stuffed into that life was _a lot_. Felt more like a year in between leading up to me sitting on the floor of my place. The broken AC meant it was pretty hot, too hot, but that was Derry heat so imagine Eds and me somewhere else like Vegas or LA. We’d roast alive because the sun wasn’t out yet and it felt as if we were spoiling in the heat. Shirts and shorts gone. I sat in my alleged _Rocko’s Modern Life_ boxer briefs while Eds changed into one of my tank tops and black briefs. The shirt he picked out was one I used some sharpie long ago and wrote out **Goonies Never Say Die** because in an ideal world I’d be Mouth and guess that made Eds Sean Astin’s character.

There weren’t really rooms in my place but we sat in the “kitchen,” which was about four tiles wide and we sat there welcoming some coolness into our lives. Eds set up a mixing bowl with water and held a rag in hand. Wish he grabbed one that wasn’t some light color because it was all full of dirt and blood as he used to clean off cuts along my face.

Eds fixed a new butterfly bandage close to my eyebrow and paused. “Can I practice stitching on you?”

“Stitching on me? What are you talking about?” I touched the back of his hand.

“Like I don’t think you need stitches but I could try.”

Still holding onto the back of his hand, I shook my head focused on him. “No, no, I’d rather not.” My glasses were up on the kitchen counter. Had to put them off to the side because I cried too much, way too much and could feel them prickling in my eyes all over again.

“You win.” Eds smirked.

“I’m exhausted, but. . .”

“You’re exhausted but, but what?”

“Hockstetter’s dead.” We sat there. Guess Eds didn’t know how or what to say to that. But I found a way for our conversation to continue. “Did you-Did you really see him at the church?” Eds just shook his head. He dumped out the water from the bowl, went to my freezer pulling out some paper towels he shoved in plastic baggies to serve as makeshift ice packs because I had none and I didn’t have ice nor did I have any frozen meat or vegetables. Not because I had a poor diet but instead because I usually sat around at Eds’ place. Chances were Karla called him first in search of me before ever trying my place. Whoever killed Hockstetter and tried to set me up though in my own home well. . .it wasn’t somebody who knew me or paid any attention to our lives.

“So what does that mean for us?” Eds held an ice pack to my knee and another to the side of my face. “Or what? Is it only you again?”

_And Bev._ Didn’t say that out loud but I guess he knew because we arrived back together at such a weird time. Rather than bring up any of that other shitty stuff, I choked out an “I don’t know, Eddie.” ‘Cause I didn’t. My big bad was gone. Somebody wanted me out of the picture. That somebody wasn’t Hockstetter but Hockstetter knew them and they also wanted Chief to be out of the picture and Betty Ripsom was now dead. We were all already living July 3rd where whatever was to happen would happen. I couldn’t stop it. It really felt like I couldn’t stop it. I know now that there was possibly nothing I could do to stop it.

A sob wracked my body. Eds sat there looking at my busted up knee with a sigh. He let me sit around crying a bit before offering me a hug. “We should get some sleep.”

“I can’t, you know that. Gotta save the world and shit.”

Still, Eds clung to me. I hugged him back though burying my face into his shoulder to let him soak up some of my tears instead. Leaning back, I snorted some snot straight back up into my nose and looked down at the floor. My knee looked like shit. There were other cuts all around my legs and arms but Eds decorated me with themed band-aids from _The Muppets_ to _The Little Mermaid_. I picked at a Flounder band-aid that already started to peel back a bit.

“Hear me out and my expert doctor opinion,” Eds commented. He leaned back from me. “Caffeine does shit for you. You got all ADHD energy and so if you need to stay awake we should at least lie down. Let your body rest.”

“ADHD energy,” I mumbled. I always felt like I had an unfortunate gene where while people chugged coffee or popped caffeine pills, I’d do the same and realize I could focus a tiny bit more than I could five minutes before. Energy drinks were the bane of my existence. I’d drink one and I’m down for the count. “Good point.”

“Yeah, I’m smart.”

“But are you?”

The very thought of everything that needed to happen stifled my heart. What I’d give to lie around for a few hours with Eds right there beside me. _Connected at the hip_ was how Karla or Chief put it, and each time I laughed because I always felt like _connected at the hop_ implied something every different they’d not be interested in me talking about. It also was more about some other body connections.

I used the back of my hand to wipe my face off. Some snot still bubbling up there. Eds got up first and threw a thing of paper towels at me before he went and crashed back on the mattress. I sat there using a paper towel to blow my nose.

“Can you take more care and be safer?” Eds called me from the next “room.” I came and laid down next to him even though I felt too hot like maybe I was running up a temperature. I rolled onto my side hugging him there. 

I don’t wanna be _that_ person but whenever I’m around Eddie, I feel normal. Not necessarily happy or sad, but content like somehow there could be balance in a world that’s always teetering over the edge toward the real, real bad. There’s something to be said about feeling a weird sense of alright when you’re around a person. Except I had no word for it, wasn’t ever one for words. I hung onto him there half afraid he’d fall asleep on me. But he didn’t. Instead, he moved just a bit, he wriggled onto his side and we just laid around.

“I mean it, Richie, about being safer. You don’t know what’s going to happen and you were already hit by a car? That’s some real shitty luck and what if next time it’s somebody who shoots you several times and you die?” He still wore the necklace I gave to Chief. Instead of hanging onto it be turned around, breaking loose from me to hang it around my neck. The metal still warm from touching his skin. Eds held up the dented heart. “I’m deciding now that I also can figure out supernatural things and this will keep you safe.”

“Can’t believe you regifted my gift for somebody else.”

“Stop it.”

But in my dreams of all this I get shot. Death was close, I could feel it in my gut and imagine the stickiness of blood spreading across my stomach and mattress to the point I needed to glance down. Nothing. Still, I held onto him a little tighter. There were a lot of nights I’d wake up to find myself hugging him, cuddled up there like it was precisely what I meant to do from the start of the night.

“I’m always careful.” I kissed him on the forehead even though I lied.

Eds reached out to pick at the necklace but instead, to ruin the moment, I snapped the elastic of his underwear right over his side bone. I got a tiny pipe of an _ouch_ from him before wrapping my hands around his waist and pulling him about as close as possible and kissed him instead on the lips. I rolled a bit over, onto him, my hands instead holding me up, both situated right beside his cheeks. I smiled down at him. Eds rolled his eyes at me or maybe not, his face was a tiny bit blurry considering my glasses still hung out on not my face.

We’d always known each other or I’m pretty sure we’d always known each other. Somehow I managed to get him to talk to me but as in really talk to me after I snuck some shitty Valentine’s Card to him, **You have 213 bones in your body, but I can make it 214.** What a risk. The kid turned all tomato red as he read it. Some teacher made us make little boxes and pass out Valentine’s to each and every single person in class. A final year before we’d be off to junior high and miss it. That was the time when Zoltar spoke, **You are destined to be together forever**. To think, Eds was such a little shit he just wrote back on a page he ripped out from his notebook and just wrote **Yes**. We spent grade school, junior high school, high school together, and now we’re 20 about to spend the rest of our lives together.

“I really mean it!” Eds jabbed a finger into my shoulder blade while I continued to lie on top of him. Though it sure hurt. My lips curled up, pain spiked. “Oh shit, sorry!” Eds wrapped his arms around me, pulling me back down, on top of him. That also hurt, but he held onto me tight. He could really just start strangling me and I’d be like _wow_. “But my point stands! Because _I_ need you to careful. Chee, I’m not the one who gets to talk to ghosts. You die, you stay dead even if you hang around to haunt me.”

Even with the thought of me dying so close in the future, I had more faith in Zoltar than anybody else. People survived bullet wounds all the time, right? Look at Chief. But he was a fighter. Not me. The dented heart was pressed into me and Eds. Maybe the bullet would miss if it ever happened. Maybe it wasn’t even a bullet directed at me but somebody else, somebody else like Hockstetter who was dead or somebody’s death who’d kill me. A metaphor.

“The dead don’t speak,” I whispered. I pressed my ear to his chest listening to the steady beat of his heart. It was pitched a bit, panic lived there at all times inside him. 

Eds groaned. “Ok, but you know what I mean! I don’t get to see you if you die.”

“I swear it, I’m careful.”

“If you’re so careful, you’d just leave with me. We got to Vegas. Hell, I’ll even go to LA, New York, Philadelphia with you. I mean that, too. I’d go to Philadelphia, a shitty city for you. Just anywhere but here and anywhere far from the big bad.”

“Ok, but does after the big bad work though? I think I can only move in a post-big bad world.” 

All I got was a sigh from Eds because of course, he knew I wasn’t gonna just leave. Nor would he. It really was _us_ together against it all and it was my favorite way to remember us.


	14. July 3 - 9:00 AM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie gets a call from Mike Hanlon.

### 9:00 AM on July 3

Ok so since I’m not the best storyteller (I’m no Mike Hanlon or Bill Denbrough), here a quick recap about the road so far:

  * **Tuesday July 2** around **9:00 AM** Patrick Hockstetter enters the Derry Grille. Bodachs everywhere so shit is going to go down.
  * **Tuesday July 2** around **12:00 PM** I broke into his place. Found files about all sorts of serial killers with a shrine dedicated to three: 
    Charles Manson
    Son of Sam
    John Wayne Gacy
  * **Tuesday July 2** still around **12:00 PM** I also found what Eds has coined as a _Portal to Hell_ at Hockstetters and I found a file for him but inside it was a single calendar date _July 3_. 
    Maybe one more important note: While there a man came in shouting for Hockstetter, angry about something (?)
  * **Tuesday July 2** close to **3:00 PM** spoke to Eddie about what I saw, said Mike Hanlon will follow up about three separate killers. Gonna follow up soon. 
  * **Tuesday July 2** almost **5:00 PM** , I saw Hockstetter following me while at Ben’s house. 
  * **Tuesday July 2** maybe **5:30** (?), went to Chief’s to talk. Henry Bowers, Vic Criss, and Betty Ripsom were all there. Chief put out APB on Hockstetter. Bowers left to help out. 
  * **Tuesday July 2** probably about **6:30 PM** , Eddie and I went to have picnic in church tower when _I_ saw Hockstetter run after us. (Did Eds really ever see him?) Hockstetter did trash the place. No fingerprints. 
  * **Tuesday July 2** around **11:30 PM** , Eddie and I went bowling, sort of just ended up there because psychic magnetism (?) and ran into Stan, _new uniform_ is the one he dies in. _Stan said in his dream_ are the following: 
    Mike Hanlon 
    Green polo and khaki of bowling staff
    Cheering or laughter
    Weird noises
    Gunshots
    Said he and Mike are going to theater (Are they dating and nobody told me? Who’s Mike anyway? Other questions here.
  * **Wednesday July 3** shortly after midnight, no big bad happens, run into Bowers in the parking lot, he asked a lot of questions about Hockstetter and even made a stupid joke about hanging out with a tough crowd back in the day. (Like yeah, we fucking know.) 
  * **Wednesday July 3** at some morning time, maybe **1:00 AM** because it was like early, early morning time. At Eddie’s, saw Bowers outside his place, keeping an eye on Eddie while Criss waited outside Hockstetters although he never showed up. 
  * **Wednesday July 3** close to **2:00 AM** , Bowers hit me with his car, he and Criss were switching (I sort of ran into the car) posts, Criss was at Eddie’s and nobody was at Hockstetters. 
  * **Wednesday July 3** from **2:30-5:00 AM** , found an unpleasant gift in my home, Hockstetter may or may not be dead. (Ok, yeah, he’s dead.) Looked like I was being framed, Bev helped me hide the body, we went back with nothing too weird happening other than getting rid of a fucking body with an almost stranger. 
  * **Wednesday July 3** after **5:00 AM** Eddie waits for me, somebody shot Chief. 



There was something missing and I had no idea what was missing or how to even start wondering what it was that I was just fucking missing. 

I dropped my pencil ready to carry on for the day because no matter what I tried to do it was like fate or something shoved us headfirst off some cliff out there. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. If there was time maybe I could’ve done research, see if there are any other weird deaths around Hockstetter and others similar to him but I had nothing to go off and maybe Hockstetter died long before he ever chased us down at the church.

I grabbed some Eggo’s from the freezer trying not to hum along with my music. I kept a walkman tucked into my back pocket and wore some headsets because when I got up, I needed to unwind myself from Eds in order to get up and moving. At first, I considered lying there but the thought of us dramatically hurtling toward some doom made me all too jittery. 

He still slept and I basically fluttered around the kitchen with too many thoughts while listening to some depression, otherwise known as Radiohead. Had _Pablo Honey_ on and kept attempting to control my surroundings with the one song everybody seemed to love but never wanted to admit because they’re too fucking cool.

But I kind of really felt _What the fuck am I doing here? I don’t belong here_. Except, it didn’t matter. We’d move out of this shit place and restart our lives doing whatever it is people do when not living and dying in Derry.

I pulled my toaster forward and plugged it in before dropping some waffles into it and got breakfast started before returning to my notes because again, there was something missing. Hockstetter was never our big bad. So then who was?

Who the fuck was going to do fucking what and when the fuck is it all going down?

I stared at my notes having to accept, I might not be able to stop this. If I didn’t then people would die people like Stan and Mike and probably me. I squeezed my eyes shut trying to find some extra memory, claw it out and be like oh that’s the fucking missing piece. I almost missed the phone starting to ring but I managed to toss my headphones to the side to grab it. The ringing woke Eds who stared at me while lying out on the mattress. I pointed at the kitchen like that meant a whole lot. Although I didn’t want my waffles to burn.

“Hey! It’s Richie. Who’s this? Karla?” I said right away.

“Um, no, it’s. . .Mike. . .as in Mike Hanlon. . .”

I looked over at Eds as he stood on his toes to get a better look at the waffles inside the toaster before grabbing the box I left out on the counter and read it.

Mike continued to talk, “So I was told you have some serial killer questions?”

“Yeah, you know me, I am all about true crime, I just love it so much so watch out.”

“Ok, so. . .I don’t know you.”

Talk about awkward pause. “But you know Eds. We’re basically the same person.”

“Not true!” Eds yelled at us. “Tell him I said it’s not true!”

“Yeah, so I was looking for info about-about. . .” _Shit, I already forgot_ “. . .Not Jack the Ripper but. . .”

“Clown man!” Eds yelled.

Guess Mike heard Eds because he chuckled a little. “Don’t worry, Eddie already told me.”

I looked at Eds as he pulled the waffles out and started to add more before going into the fridge to look for probably syrup. It was still boiling hot. Maybe Eds had a point about calling the one place a portal to hell seeing it feels like all fire and brimstone around us.

“So we have David Berkowitz or Son of Sam who was active in the 1970s but he’s been in the news a lot lately because he’s been incarcerated since the 70s but changed his confession to talk about how he really had been a member of a violent Satanic cult. There’s a new ongoing investigation to look into this.”

Still, I watched Eds as he rummaged around the fridge. The place where he said people keep heads and body parts. You know, I had yet to look at Hockstetter's fridge. “But did he?”

“Did he what?”

Instead, I faced the wall. Talking about all this murder felt as if I were about to invite them right into my life. “The Son of Sam guy, did he have a cult?”

“I don’t know, but he says so. Anyway then you have Charles Manson and his Manson family, he convinced his followers into committing a series of murders.”

“Hold up!” Even though I could hear Eds turning around to look at me, I didn’t look back. It was like I’d give some serial killer too much information cause they could see how to get in and out through my vision. Eds came up right beside me signaling he wanted to listen. “Eds is here.”

“Hi Mike!”

“Wait, I have a question like what kind of cult are we talking about? They’re a cult, right? You said followers?”

Over the line, we could hear Mike sigh. “I don’t know, I’m not really a murder person.”

“That’s a lie,” Eds said to the phone then looked at me. “Really, it’s a lie. He knows all about every murder even the one about that one kid who had his arm ripped off and was left to die in the steet. Remember that?”

“Wait! Are you talking about Georgie?”

“Yeah, him.” Eds pressed his lips together and looked away from me. “Sorry, I forgot you knew him.” 

Mike continued, “Then we have John Wayne Gacy who some people like to call Killer Clown because he regularly performed at children’s hospitals and charity events but don’t let that fool you because he murdered at least 33 young men and boys.”

“Yeah, I figured he sucked when you said _killer_ clown. Just something about the word clown, I don’t trust. Killer, that can be a positive.” I wanted to say more but Eds tugged the phone a little closer to himself.

“Did he have a clown cult? I hope he didn’t have a clown cult but like a regular cult.”

I nudged him away a bit. “Stop it. I’m the one talking here.”

“No, I think he has a point,” Mike commented. “Eddie, you weren’t here but I also mentioned Son of Sam who claims he didn’t work alone, Manson had his cult, and also since John Wayn Gacy’s execution lawyers have been looking into his case realizing he probably didn’t act alone either.”

None of that meant anything to me. It wasn’t like there were any cults racing around Derry attempting to get people to join their brainwashing agenda. Ask anybody around and they’d say no cults, but that gay agenda sure is the scariest around here.

But maybe Eds had a secret affinity for cults because he went on asking, “What kind of cults? Sex cults? Satanic cults? Satanic sex cults?”

Eds chattered one with Mike and I tried to wrack my brain but there were too many overwhelming pieces to bring it all together. 

Hockstetter.

Hockstetter bad.

Hockstetter doing something bad on July 3rd.

Hockstetter dead.

But also Betty dead. Chief almost dead. Me framed, which meant. . . “He doesn’t work alone.”

“Who?” asked Mike.

“Sorry, gotta go.” I hung up on him without so much more as a thank you or goodbye. But there’s no name or face, I could go out there and start walking until I found them. “Can I borrow your bike?”

“But what about breakfast?” he replied.

“There’s something I gotta go see. He wasn’t working alone.” I paused for a bit. “He’s dead. Hockstetter is dead and he doesn’t work alone and whoever killed him, framed me so whoever it is we have to know them. Right?”

“I bet it’s Henry Bowers.”

“Stop it, this is serious.” I took a step away from the wall only to dart across the room to grab onto some clothes. I changed into jeans for some protection because it sure was hot but a lot of danger taunted us and all. I threw on an old shirt from Freese’s Department Store only to turn around and see Eds standing there glaring at me. “What?”

But Eds only shook his head before grabbing a plate for some waffles. “Just you. I don’t know.”

“Shit. Don’t be like that. Now’s not the right time.” I struggled to get some socks on while looking at him. “I don’t want to end on a fight.”

Eds choked on the waffle he bit into. “End? Wait, what-what are you talking about?”

_I might die._ Rather than slip into my chucks, I laid back down on the mattress. “I think we have some time though. I can wait. I’ll just drop you off at work.”

“But can we backtrack to you saying end?”

At least, Eds came and sat down on the mattress beside me. He rested a waffle on the back of my hands. I sat up wrinkling my nose as pain and stiffness really settled in all across my body. I did a sharp intake pretending I’m not in pain. Me? Never. Still, I fell back onto the mattress not wanting to get up again. Eds rolled his eyes and put his plate down on my stomach and got up.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know! Everything’s wrong!” He’s in the freezer pulling out more of his pretend ice packs before he poured a glass of water and grabbed some Advil. Returning he put it off to the side, and commented, “It’s there if you want it.” Then without taking the plate off me, he just took his waffle and ate. Meanwhile, mine rested on the floor, dedicated to the mice who refused to pay me rent.

I poked his thigh still lying there. “Eddie, you know I can’t just lie around and pretend this isn’t happening. I know something bad is gonna happen and I’m sure as hell gonna stop it.”

Eds didn’t even look at me. He sat there staring at the crooked artwork I hung up in my room. The entire time he kept munching on his waffle.

“It’s not the _end_ to anything, I was just being a bitch earlier about it.”

Finally, Eds looked down at me and sighed. “Yeah, I get it, but I can still be worried because you’re a fucking idiot. You ran into a car last night.”

“It was more like a mutual accident of me running into the car and it hitting me.”

Eds swatted the back of my head. “Stop it!” He continued to sit there looking down at me. It’d be great to read minds to know whatever is passing through his thoughts in the moment, I pushed my glasses back acting like that’ll help me see life in a much higher definition. “I just-I just. . .I don’t know, I’m not like _you_ but I need you to respect that I have a bad feeling about today.”

“That’s probably just called anxiety. Did you feel that way yesterday before I told you about all this?”

“No.” Another deep sigh from him. “Right, I guess you’re right.”

Carefully, I put the plate off to the side before I sat up, biting my lip as pain popped all over the place for me. Sitting there, I pulled Eddie a little closer to me and kissed his forehead before getting up. “I’ll drop you off at work so I can have the bike to go out somewhere. I have an idea about something.” Still, Eds just sat there. I looked over at him. Something else was very, very wrong. “What?”

“Nothing.” Eds attempted a shrug before he got up. He went into the kitchen messing with stuff like he was accomplishing some task. “I was thinking that we could never be like a dynamic duo bowling team or something like that. . .”

“In Vegas?” I finished.

He sort of smiled. “Yeah, Vegas. We’ll have to figure out a different career.”

“Hm, so I already have a plan. No more fry cooking for me but instead, I’ll sell shoes by day because a lot of people have feet, a lot of people have two feet so people need shoes, I’ll sell them those shoes. Then by night, standup comedian Richard Trashmouth Tozier over here.”

Eds snorted. “You can’t do that.”

“Why not? It’s a brilliant idea.”

“Yeah, if you were funny so just stick to the shoes.”

I gave him a little push. “How about instead I can become one of those dancers, too. I don’t think it’s about the quality of dancing.”

“Oh. . . _Richard_. . .no. . .” Eds shook his head. “It _is_ about the quality of dancing, looks, body, and really just the whole package and that’s not you.”

“ _Wow_! Rude!”

“I’m just trying to save you now before you become an embarrassment. Like on SNL Chippendales skit.”

“Excuse you! Both Chris Farley and Patrick Swayze are amazing! I’d love to be a tiny bit as funny as Chris Farley because perfection! _Tommy Boy_ and _Coneheads_ are already classics.”  
“Ok, right, sorry that I brought that up.”

I got up. It was probably time to go. Eds moved toward a little dresser I had. Another curbside pick up of mine. The bottom drawer was dedicated to his things. He pulled out his uniform. His shirt the color of strawberry ice cream and white shorts. He disappeared into the bathroom to change. 

A dead man was in there last night.

If there was any way for Eds to know, he didn’t comment. Instead, he walked out soon after. “Since people love ice cream so much, I’m opening one in Vegas and no uniforms for everybody because this-this is stupid and I’d make even crazier ice cream flavors and ones that are dairy-free so all the lactose-intolerant people don’t have to worry about pooping their guts out.”

Something about the word _pooping_ got me to laugh. Eds looked over at me, I just hung around grinning at him and he stood there right before the bathroom. Ready to go already. His shoes were white, but they’d seen better days. There was a pretty large scuff mark on one cause as a joke I wrote R + E but he never wanted his mother or anybody to see it so he tried to buff it out making his shoes a disaster but they sure as hell lasted long enough. The entire time I stood around there smiling at him without moving.

“What?” Eds interrupted, I wasn’t really having a lot of thoughts but I guess enough to fall back in time. Not to the right time. Today was the day. It was the day. Eds added with a nervous laugh, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

I shrugged and felt embarrassed by my small laugh. Still, Eds waited for a for real answer. So, I told him the truth. “I don’t know, I think it’s because I love you or something.”

There are some days I pretend those were my last words I ever said out loud to Eds. Of course, we shared more words along the way but that just, I don’t know. Something about that moment stays with me. Same with the lies Zoltar told us, **You are destined to be together forever**.


	15. July 3 - 10:00 AM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie and Eddie say goodbye on doomsday.
> 
> Richie teams up with Bev and Ben to look for more clues.

### 10:00 AM on July 3

I already sat out on the scooter. My feet are on the ground still unable to move. I felt frozen like if I moved whatever was coming would catch up to me. If I stayed put, it’d never happen. Instead, time wouldn’t go on as long as I waited outside my place listening to stupid songs, keeping Eds safe inside, we’d order pizza so food could come to us and not us going to it. But Eds came out setting things into motion, dressed for work and he stopped right out by the bike. I look over at him as he climbed onto the back of the bike, but I continued to stay there unable to move. There wasn’t a way out. Only a way forward straight into danger.

“Richie?” whispered Eds.

“Yeah.” I sighed starting up the bike.

“Something wrong?”

 _Yeah_. “I’m gonna need to borrow your scooter for something later.”

At first, there wasn’t a comment from Eds. We sat there probably looking super awkward hanging out on the scooter while it hummed with some life but we didn’t move on. Maybe I should’ve asked him, but I didn’t. Just pretty much told him that I’m taking it.

“No.”

“No?” I choked on shock because _What the actual fuck?!_

“I said, no.” And I had to look back at him over my shoulder. “I don’t think you should do whatever it is you’re going to do.”

I kept staring at him from over my shoulder. “What?! But, Eds. . .I gotta.”

“Stop calling me that.” He sat there scowling at me without nudging off the bike or anything. I needed to get moving. He needed to get moving. Changing the subject, Eds admitted a truth somewhere deep from within. “Richi. . .! But what if you die?”

 _I’m probably gonna die._ “I won’t.”

“Well, I still don’t want you to take my scooter anywhere. I’m scared for you.”

Made sense. I swung myself off the scooter and took a few steps back, I pushed my glasses up. Eds watched me the whole time, mouth struggling to find the right words to speak up. If he stayed any longer, he’d be late to work and he scooted up to the front holding onto the handles. He released one long, long, long, well deserved sigh.

“Hey, Eddie. . .”

“Yeah?”

“After work we should start planning on how we move to Vegas.”

Eds smiled. “Be careful.”

“Shut up, I always am.”

“That’s a lie and you know it.”

I smiled back though. “Ok, but I mean it this time.”

“Whatever.” Eds hesitated a moment longer. “I just might really like you.”

“Eddie, my love, shut the fuck up because you know you love me.” I laughed and he shook his head.

And with that Eds left on his scooter. All bound up in safety pads and a helmet. He almost looked like a turtle hunched over on the scooter. I realized Bev’s car was gone, which meant I could maybe ask Bill for help at the dinner. It was walkable but I didn’t have time so I selected to do an awkward half run, half walk glad I didn’t ever have to worry about having a moment where I go _Shit, I have asthma_ , but my lungs were still in pain.

For a day of disaster, nothing crept around corners to warn me. Up ahead Derry Grille was about to come up. Luck on my side had Bev sitting outside at a small table. She was looking at the menu with an empty seat before her.

“BEV!” I shouted almost startling from her seat.

She turned and looked at me. “Richie?”

“Can I use your car?”

“Why?” 

“There’s something I have to see, trust me.”

The door to the grille opened as Ben Hanscom walked over to the empty seat. He looked from me to her with a lot of guilt-ridden confusion across his face.

Bev groaned. “Ok, but I come with the car.” She stood up giving Ben such an awkward little smile. “Another time?”

“Wait! Do you need help?” Ben did his best to offer.

“No!”

But Bev said, “Yes.”

“What! No! Bev! It’s about the eaday odybay.”

“Riiiiiight. . .” Bev looked back at Ben but I don’t think anything we could’ve said would have turned him away by that point.

Instead, he just asked, “What do you need help with.”

“He stays in the car,” I told her.

Bev led us to the car. I took the passenger seat with Ben in the back. A few times Bev glanced over at me as she drove off knowing where to go. There was-There was something missing. Something I didn’t get. A missing piece to this huge ass puzzle that wasn’t making sense. Of course by then I knew Hockstetter had a partner. Who? No idea. Without a name or a face, I couldn’t find them. Psychic magnetism had its limits and those limits were too much in the moment. Maybe-Maybe there was something on Hockstetter that would give me a hint, give me a path, help me figure out what the fuck was gonna happen on July 3rd.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. Mike Hanlon is about to play a much larger part, promise. There'll be a lot of him and Stan.
> 
> Then of course Bev and Ben.
> 
> Not so much Bill (sorry).


	16. July 3 - 11:03 AM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie figures out who Hockstetter was working with.

### 11:03 AM on July 3

The Church of the Whispering Comet Topless Bar, Adult Bookstore, Burger Heaven of course was our destination and such a destination that left Ben there in silence. Bev parked the car and we all sort of just sat around there listening to static on the radio. I didn’t want to climb out of the car to see what I wanted to see. There had to be something I was missing and maybe the missing piece would help me save lives.

“So why are we here?” Ben asked while he looked out the window.

“Checking up on something,” Bev told him.

“Alright then?” Glad Ben left it at that. I always figured he knew there was something pretty different about me and so many of us. There wasn’t anything normal about Derry and Ben had the greatest luxury to know that for a fact since he wasn’t from around there.

Still, I sat around without a lot to say and my thoughts were even quiet for a change. Usually they were all too loud and sometimes louder than too loud making me just want to sit around without doing anything. Unable to focus on music, TV, movies, books, anything. Somehow I needed all that sound to shut the fuck up. I opened the door but still sat there.

“Do you have a mask or anything I can cover my face with?” I looked to Bev.

“Um, there might be a scarf in the back.”

“Thanks.” 

I climbed out and went into the back finding a scarf, which I used to cover my mouth and nose and hoped it’d be enough. The whole place already stank and seemed to sweat under the hot, hot sun. Had to be the hottest day of the year, which missed me off. There wasn’t any wind to help out. Felt as if all my thoughts were boiling inside my head.

As I headed through the entrance where flies swarmed. The chubby sort that bit you. I ducked underneath them heading inside while some nipped at my neck and the backs of my hands. The whole time I tried to brush them off by flinging my hands around. 

Inside, I crept downstairs to where we left Hockstetter behind. The whole place smelled of feces as Hockstetter decayed. Feces mixed with ammonia or something. I made it to the spot where we left Hockstetter still swatting nipping flies away. I stared at Hockstetter sitting partially up right there. Dead ladybugs crunched underneath my weight in my approach. Not sure if they were better than crushing cockroaches. Those little ladybugs were crawling all over Hockstetter looking closer to bloody welts all along him. His jaw hung ajar with a single wasp crawling along his lower lip, its little weaponized body bobbing around and me hoping it’d just be gone.

The scarf did little to helped me. I tried to hold my breath for as long as possible even though it resulted in my vision to spin. Still, I managed to get down and looked at Hockstetter, I was missing something, missing. 

I took a fallen bar from the floor to poke at him trying to push back some of his shirt surrounding the bullet wound. I paused expecting the wasp or more to fly up. Instead, it kept on bobbing across his lip and into his mouth. Disgusting. Then Hockstter started to move but just cause my bar made him slump over a bit and I realized, some black ink crept out from his long sleeve. I used the bar to push it up a little to find, to find a tattoo I’d seen before. The bar clattered to the ground ‘cause I was about to puke. That weird symbol. The weird crooked T that was both capital and lowercase at the same time with a little hat to top it all off.

Even with me close to vomiting and the sickness pounding around me with loud flies buzzing around and around and around. Hockstetter smelled so bad and the scarf did nothing to help out. I backed up with ladybugs still crunching underneath my weight. The missing piece, the missing piece was right there along his wrist, tattooed over his now mottled skin.

Somehow I stumbled back only to fall out of time to us and Bowers at the bowling alley. The _us_ being Eds and me heading out. Bowers asking about Hockstetter and if we were sure we saw him because he’d been dead by then. Hockstetter. Hockstetter was already dead and lying in my own home to set me up, shove me out of the picture like so many.

Worse, Eds asked Bowers about the same exact tattoo and he joked, _Believe it or not I used to run with a pretty rough gang back in the day, did a lot of things I regret, and we all had matching tattoos._

_Believe it or not I used to run with a pretty rough gang back in the day, did a lot of things I regret, and we all had matching tattoos._

Bowers covering it back up. The last time I’d seen Betty, she’d been around Bowers at the Chief’s and she was super dead while Chief was close to death and Hockstetter had some friend or partner out there but would it actually, really be somebody as obvious as Bowers?

_Believe it or not I used to run with a pretty rough gang back in the day, did a lot of things I regret, and we all had matching tattoos._

“BEV!” I screamed. 

Good thing she wasn’t there because vomit flew out of my mouth and onto the ground around me. Evidence left in the clear, not something I could easily explain or clean up there. But I scooted around it and charged back up and out of the Church of the Whispering Comet Topless Bar, Adult Bookstore, Burger Heaven.

At least Bev climbed out of the car when she saw me there, stumbling unable to see straight. Pain sparked up in my vision as if I were still holding my breath but truth be told, I couldn’t breathe with all the panic and rage bursting through me. Bowers. Henry Bowers was the problem. Of course, he was the problem but if he were the problem, it meant I could hunt him the fuck down. I didn’t realize I was falling over until she caught me.

“We have to. . .! We have to go! We have to go now! Right now!”

“Ok, ok, ok,” whispered Bev while hanging onto me.

“No, we have to. . .!”

Rather than ask a lot of questions, she probably figured we needed to get the fuck out of there because she helped me into the car. I sank into the seat while Ben watched the two of us. The mouth tasted all bitter but I closed my eyes trying to imagine Bowers hideous face. Clenching my teeth and squeezing my eyes shut, I did what I could to find Bowers.

“Hey? Rich? Richie? Richie?” Bev kept saying to me while the radio buzzed so loud. “Hey! I’m talking to you Corey Feldman!”

I did look up at her. “Shut up, Ringwald, I gotta think.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“What’s even happening?” asked Ben.

Using the scarf, I wrapped it around my eyes instead so even if I opened my eyes, there was nothing to see. Leaning back in the seat, I ended up turning up the static. It grew louder and louder helping me to wipe out my thoughts. 

_Focus_.

 _Focus_.

 _Focused_.

“Start heading straight back toward Derry,” I told them. Bev started to drive. I clung to Bowers knowing psychic magnetism would pull me toward him. I’d find him. “Just keep going straight for a while. . .”

We could stop whatever was going to happen from happening.


	17. July 3 - 11:03 AM (Eddie)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Henry Bowers comes to the mall to ask a few questions.

### 11:03 AM on July 3

The moment Eddie went to scoop a giant ball of curry mint ice cream for some little kid, but when he went to lift it out. Bowers stepped into his line of view. Some reason Eddie yelped flinging the scoop up onto the ceiling. Him, the kid, and Bowers all stared up at it because the scoop stuck real good to the ceiling. 

Eddie ignored Bowers to lift up an ice cream cone into his hand waiting while gravity pried at the above scoop, he held it up a little higher catching it.

“Shit! That worked.” Eddie looked at the kid who appeared to be all around horrified. “Oh, sorry, it’s on the house.” He handed the ice cream cone to the kid who did take it but continued to stand around, jaw hanging all ajar. “Take it, it’s free ice cream. I don’t think you can get anything like Giardia, Salmonella and so on because a lot of them are from when you eat something that touches poop.”

The kid backed up nodding and took off to catch up with their group.

“Can I have a minute?” Bowers asked.

“How can I help you?” Eddie sounded robotic, he wanted no tone of inflection in his voice. Just a manager at an ice cream shop. But it hurt wearing pink in front of a guy like Bowers, he usually never came around the mall.

“I couldn’t get a hold of your. . .” The two stared at each other. “I couldn’t get a hold of Richie so far this morning.”

“Why do you want to talk to Richie?” Eddie dropped the scoopers into the water to make sure it was cleaned off for the next person. With a little wooden stick, he tried some strawberry ice cream to stay buy while Bowers stared at him. “Well, he’s not here. Check the Derry Grille.”

Bowers stared at him. “I did, Bill said it’s his day off.”

“He’s not with me so try his apartment. We’re not actually attached at the hip, you know.”

Bowers jaw was taut, he glared at Eddie while the conversation started to get all repetitive without answers. “I’m trying to help.” Each letter was all snappy and filled with anger. It got Eddie to stop trying the strawberry ice cream. “I have news about Chief Porter and Karla said she can’t get a hold of him.”

“Sorry. . .sorry. . .but I really don’t know.”

Bowers slammed his palm down the counter. “Great, I’ll see you around then.” He dragged his feet away from the ice cream place leaving Eddie standing there about as confused as ever. Other than Bowers showing off his tattoo the other night, he can’t quite remember any other time they talked. Just a lot of shouting by Bowers as he harassed them. He watched Eddie the entire time as he backed away from the place and turned around to leave for real.

Somebody else came up asking for a sample, which he served almost dropping it along the way. Eddie wasn’t too sure if he whispered sorry or not but he sure as hell thought it. Bowers was to blame for making everything as awkward as possible. But also. 

Where’d that little fucker get off to?


	18. July 3 - 11:30 AM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie uses some psychic abilities to hunt Henry Bowers down.

### 11:30 on July 3

Being psychic is really, really fucking weird. 

The moment I thought of Bowers back at the church, I figured out where he was and by figured out I don’t really mean figured-figured out. I kept my eyes closed tight yelling out directions to Bev even though I wasn’t always the best at knowing my left from right. Had nothing to do with being smart or stupid. Something just never quite clicked there.

“Left then make another left again when you can,” I told Bev, white noise still turned up real loud. I could hear her little car roaring as loud as it could. We were so far from everything. From everybody. And it wasn’t like we had a phone or any way to get a hold of Karla, Chief, Eds, Bill, Stan, Mike, other officers, or somebody. Anybody!

“Go straight, straight for a bit. . .” I tried to point as if that’d help.

Something struck the car. Both Ben and Bev started to scream and I peeled my blindfold away to see nobody hit us. No other car or person but instead. . .bodach. They were fucking with me the whole time.

“Just go, go straight!” I yelled. “STRAIGHT!”

“RICHIE!” Bev yelled.

“Go straight or I’ll start driving.” 

Bev slammed her foot into the gas pedal again as the car hurtled forward, even faster than before. The road was long with a sign already welcoming us to Derry. Ben continued to shout. I looked at him to see him hanging tight to the door handle.

Once again, I pulled the blindfold down. “Go straight! Faster!”

“I can’t go faster!”

“FASTER!”

I couldn’t see how Bev reacted but she was mad. Bodachs struck the car again and again but we went on. “I fucking hate you, Tozier!”

Chief got shot by somebody he knew. Whoever shot him must have been Bowers. It made perfect sense. Bowers would, he was always such a fucking dick. And to think him and Hockstetter had matching tattoos. Still had no idea what. . .

“RIGHT! GO RIGHT!”

The car swerved and I hit the door, Ben sounded like he tumbled across the seat and Bev just screamed the whole time. We kept going down another road getting closer and closer. . .

There wasn’t any way to know what Bowers was up to. No clues left behind. Nothing spread out for me to figure out and understand but I wanted to and I needed to and it was impossible to know if we could stop at the Grille to call Eds or Chief or somebody out there.

“Another right. . .!”

Bev did and we headed out a little longer. My heartbeat a little too fast, I was sure I’d croak at any second. My real cause of death was never a bullet to the stomach but instead a panic attack. My heart felt all swollen inside my chest and palms all sweaty. I grabbed the handle like Ben did in the back trying to bend my thoughts into the right direction to figure out what the fuck Hockstetter and Bowers were up to only for Bev to break my thoughts.

And at a whisper. “Richie. . .”

I couldn’t find any words to share. Bev must’ve kept her foot on the brake because we no longer burst forward into the world like we could stop some catastrophe from happening out there.

“. . .Richie. . .” Again Bev just whispered and I think I heard Ben, too.

I peeled the blindfold down to find what her soft whisper meant. We were parked out by the loading docks to the mall. The parking lot already packed, some sale going on with the fourth of July happening soon. A cop car waited out by the loading dock, looking all empty and I sat there unable to breathe. My fingers fumbled with the door and there were no words for the panic that was already killing me. 

When I got the door open, Bev instead gasped, “Richie! WAIT!”

I didn’t wait. 

Instead, looking back before running off and closing the door. All I told Bev was, “Eddie.” The door snapped shut behind me. A brief explosion and I was off with her and Ben just sitting around in the car. 

I couldn’t wait.


	19. Past: August 29, 1989

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie and Eddie hang out in the hospital after his arm was broken.

# Past

### August 29, 1989

“I don’t, I don’t think I understand.” Eds watched me even though I was the one lying around on his hospital bed, my hands camping out underneath my head. I offered him a shrug. “That’s not an answer.”

“I just. . .I told Chief a lot of things and Mr. Keene had a few things to say, too, and a few others so right now you’re just staying with us. Pretty sure Sonia wanted to say no, but she played along.”

Eds looked away sucking his lips in. It was pretty hot in the hospital like they had no idea AC existed. His arm was all busted up and in a giant cast thanks to Bowers and some others from school. I poked at his cast but he didn’t realize, it was too giant for that sort of thing. Somebody wrote **Loser** across it in big letters rather than their name.

“Hey, that’s what you are,” I said looking up at him.

But whatever Eds thought about consumed his thoughts. He shook his head. “But what about my mom? She could be in trouble.”

“Eds. . .”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Ok, Eddie, she _is_ in trouble and you are _not_. You’re not in trouble anymore.” I sat up grabbing a plastic bag off the ground that I brought with me. “I got you a present, by the way.”

Eds looked at me, we sat there next to each other. I handed the plastic bag to him, it was all wrapped up around his gift rather than fancy paper or a gift bag. It really was all last minute. Didn’t think I’d wake up from some nap with Karla telling me Eds was in the hospital. Already, I had no idea what year it was.

“You can’t make fun of it though. Karla said it’d be nice and I trust her.”

And Eds sat there with the card from Zoltar all framed. **You are destined to be together forever.** “This is so fucking corny.”

I punched his shoulder and he gasped an ouch. “Shut up, Eddie.” I climbed out of his bed looking around the room. Some people brought flowers and cards and there wasn’t what I looked for so I popped outside the room where Chief waited. “Do you have a sharpie?”

“Um. . .” muttered Chief patting his clothes but Karla pulled one out for me. “Yes.”

Returning to the room, I plopped down in front of Eds while he held onto the framed card. He probably wasn’t thinking about it. Probably thinking about how Sonia Kaspbrak was under investigation for child abuse. With the sharpie, I used it to sort of cross out the ‘s’ but really turned it into a ‘v.’ 

Eds looked down and muttered a quick, “Thank you.”

I pushed my glasses up, “No problem.”

Chief stood in the doorway. “Let me know when you kids are ready to go.”

“Yeah,” whispered Eds.

To be a jerk, I squeezed his one cheek. “Eddie, my love, you look terrible. I’ll let you change.” And I hopped out of bed following Chief out so that Eds could change into his street clothes rather than a hideous hospital gown. When I closed the door, I saw Eddie just sitting there staring at what Zoltar said.


	20. July 3 - 11:30 AM (Eddie)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike Hanlon tells a scary story.

### 11:30 on July 3

There was a lull in the day, probably because most people weren’t interested in ice cream before lunch even with the fourth of July coming up. Nothing said America like some consumerism. Everybody was too busy shopping rather than settling down in the food court leaving Eddie alone considering if it was worth scooping himself some ice cream and eating it right off the scooper. The answer was always no, which he learned the hard way not to do that when his tongue got stuck on the first day forcing Richie to come pick him up early. The jokes he cracked were relentless.

“Is it inappropriate to request twenty different samples?” somebody asked.

“Huh?” Eddie muttered trying to hide a yawn only to realize it was just Stan and Mike. He smiled. “Pretty inappropriate.”

“How come?” asked Mike, joining in the little conversation.

“It’s appropriate to request a minimum of thirty different flavors, what’s the point of having so many flavors if you’re only gonna ask for a few?”

“Twenty is way more than a few,” commented Mike.

Meanwhile, Stan looked at his feet while he smiled. “You said free ice cream, right?”

“Right!” Eddie lifted his scooper up while looking at Mike. “Happy Birthday! Congrats on being twenty with the rest of us.”

“Aren’t you still nineteen?” Stan corrected. He said it like a question even though he knew the truth.

But Eddie instead turned to scoop some ice cream for Mike knowing his order by heart. It was the same thing each time it was available, cherry chocolate coconut chunk. With it ready to go all topped up on a sugar cone, he handed it over to Mike.

Stan chuckled looking at Mike. “Come here often?”

“Yeah.” Mike took the ice cream avoiding any eye contact as he answered. “With my dad after any of his appointments.”

“Sorry,” Stan whispered. He looked up at Eddie. “Um, mint chocolate chip?”

“Glad it’s not vanilla.”

“Oh!” Stan appeared to really consider this as an option only to end up saying. “No thanks.”

After Eddie handed off the ice cream to them, he took a peek in the back where his one other coworker hung around reading a book for school. “I’m gonna take a fifteen, it’s slow out there so just keep an eye on any movement.”

They grunted in response and Eddie went to join Mike and Stan after scooping himself some ice cream. The three sat at a table pretty close by. Eddie pulled up a chair from some other table to join them. There were a few other people in the food court, camping out, taking breaks more from shopping than eating a lot quite yet. All around them were fake trees and bird sounds as if they’re hanging around outdoors for a picnic.

“What else do you have planned for today?” Eddie asked.

Stan shrugged. He looked over at Mike who answered, “Probably birding because that’s what somebody wants to do even though it’s my birthday.”

“You like birds!” protested Stan.

“No, one time I said I wanted to learn more about John Audoban when we went up to Portland and visited the Audubon Society there. I want to know the _history_ not the _ornithology_.”

Eddie paused mid-bite to say, “That’s-That’s a big word and I don’t know what it means.”

“Bird science,” mumbled Mike. “It’s the study of birds. And that Society was interesting because it’d been around since 1843 because that’s when the Portland Society of Natural History was founded then it wasn’t until 1897 that they had a chapter that merged with them focused on birds.”

All of that had Eddie just sitting there with his spoon in his mouth and ice cream melting in its little cup. Eddie ended up poking his ice cream with his spoon instead. Time for a subject change because that was _a lot_ , but that was also Mike and Stan. They were the smart sort of kids that were also disciplined enough that they could apply it to life beyond their own thoughts.

“How’s school going?” Eddie asked.

Mike shrugged. “It’s going, been a little distracted but it’s ok.”

“Same,” was Stan’s only conversation contribution. He looked around as if he were about to identify any one of the fake bird noises around the three. “How’s Richie doing? He seems more of a mess than ever besides our possible catastrophe.”

“Possible catastrophe?” Mike snapped a look at him.

“I told you about it.”

“Oh, right. The whole dream thing.” Mike seemed to let this sit with him for a while before letting himself eat some more ice cream.

Eddie shrugged. “I think we’re getting out of here soon, it’ll be better that way, I think.”

Stan chuckled, shaking his head. “Do you really think Richie’d just get up and leave Derry? He’d never leave that grille or the police chief.”

It was a good enough of a point to make Eddie lose his appetite. He pushed his ice cream out a little bit and sank into his seat a bit. “Trust me, this time it’s for real. Also Richie told me this whole thing the other day where he was going to sell shoes because people with feet will always need shoes. It was a weird way where I think he was trying to say that he loved me enough that he’d do that.”

“For a guy who always says Eddie, _my love_ , that seems pretty normal by his standards.” Stan made some weird look while picking at his ice cream. Some weirdness struck their table leaving them all a little less hungry and Eddie stood up. “What? Sorry! I’m sure he’ll get his act together. Where are you guys moving to?”

“Probably Las Vegas.”

“That’s far,” commented Mike with a nod as if he were agreeing with somebody else.

“Yeah, but I like the idea of all the lights and they have a pyramid, which is pretty crazy.”

“Just watch out for that Circus Circus place, I hate the idea of that place. That and the cowboy you see in every movie,” said Stan shaking his head.

“Circus Circus is nothing compared to Derry. I mean, you guys have heard the whole conspiracy theory behind all those weird things that have happened in the past?”

“No,” both Stan and Eddie replied in unison.

“When this land was first colonized, Derry was established. The people who concluded this was their new home, well they settled down, lived their lives, and one day all contact was lost to the outside world. So the family member of somebody who called Derry home, traveled with a handful of people to see what was wrong. It’d been months, too many months more than the usual silence in between letters and people died a lot more often back then.” 

“When they arrived to the settlement, there was nobody around. All 91 people, _gone_ and people don’t just disappear. You cannot uncreate matter, it’s not how the universe works. But there were never any skeletons found, nobody remains, just empty houses with empty beds, food out rotting on the table, stuff hanging out in closets and whatnot. Then according to only a handful of sources, there was a weird symbol carved into each of the doors as if whatever took those people left the symbol behind or the people thought whatever it was would be steered away by the symbol. Now while only a few sources say this, they do appear to date back to the 18th century when this all happened.” 

The whole time Mike looked carefully from Stan to Eddie while he told the story. Eddie though stood there looking down at them while he tried to calculate the story being told. Every part of him wanted to insist none of that made sense.

_It’s just a ghost story_ , but what’s the point of blaming ghosts when you know ghosts roam this place. Eddie can’t see them but he sure knew somebody who could.

“In the 1860s, a gang called the Derry Padrinos started to cause some chaos. Either it's a weird coincidence or they’re really interested in 18th-century history because, with the onset of photography technology, we have absolute proof of one important factor. It was mandatory for each and every gang member of the gang to have the same tattoo, but before I get to that, let me tell you about the Derry Padrinos. We have one that happened in the 1860s and again in the 1900s only for them to all end up dead by 1902. Either way, the first story goes a bit like this, and by first story, it’s not the _first incident_ with them but one so outrageous compared to their typical petty theft and violence.” 

“But one day, one what started out as an almost regular day, some people insist within the margins of their diaries that something was off like cats sleeping in different rooms than usual, dogs barking at nothing, children minding their own business then start sobbing as if they saw something, but those are just stories.” 

“The concrete facts are the following, the Derry Padrinos killed 50 kids and 70 adults, all of whom were shot down for no reason at all. And in the middle of the day, too. Overall, that’s 120 people dead, all shot down.” 

“Then in 1900, they struck again, walked into a police station killing 5 officers, and shot them down. Two years later, every member of the Derry Padrinos were found dead. Some in gutters, some over the graves of those they murdered, others in their homes, one was found with their face buried in oatmeal mixed with their own blood. Thing was, whoever killed them all off carved away at their wrists, skinning away the tattoos that long stood for Derry Padrino.”

Eddie interrupted, “That’s just a story, right? A scary story.” _It’s just a ghost story_.

“It’s true. The death certificates are at the historical society,” Mike insisted. “There’s also early crime scene photographs or daguerrotypes or some of the dead.” 

“But that’s a lot of people. You can’t just kill 120 people at the same time. Right? Right?!” Eddie frantically looked at Mike to Stan but Stan avoided eye contact, he moved his knees away as if to show a full-on detachment.

Mike nodded in agreement. “Eddie. . .that can happen, it did happen. There is a lot of evidence to prove that it happened.”

“WAIT!” Eddie blurted, he meant to shout that but also didn’t mean to shout it seeing they were in the middle of a food court. A few people glanced at him. Shit, it was already starting to pick up but his heart got all fluttery and his lungs were aching. “What-What did it look like? The gang tattoo and the tree engraving? They’re the same, right?”

“Um. . .Yeah. . .” Mike looked around and Stan handed him a pen. “Thanks.”

“I try to always keep one on me, you never know.” Stan shrugged.

Mike sat there scratching out his first attempting, he squeezed his eyes shut in an obvious attempt to remember what was up. Soon he opened his eyes and managed to draw out a symbol. Before Mike said anything else, Eddie swept it off the table staring straight at it.

Again with the shouting, “I-I HAVE TO GO!”

“What?!” Mike looked after him but Eddie was already running back toward the ice cream place.

Of course there was some line out there, and his coworker wasn’t doing his part of the work. There was a lot, a lot going on. He glanced at the napkin staring at the weird little symbol that Mike drew and somehow pinpointed the precise reason it gave him anxiety. He’d seen it before and so recently, too. On Bowers’ wrist but Bowers was supposed to be one of the good guy’s right about then.

Eddie stumbled into the back, wheezing, startling his coworker from the back. “Inhaler. Help up front.”

“Oh right,” they put the book down and went up to help out. 

Eddie first collapsed into a seat. His inhaler was in a locker and would be really useful in that moment but he kept staring and staring and letting the lightheadedness get to him as he stared at the symbol Mike drew.


	21. July 3 - 11:59 AM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **TW: This does deal with a mass shooting at the mall, in case you don't know Odd Thomas**.
> 
> Richie's ready to do anything to save Eddie.
> 
> Bev is intense.

### 11:59 AM on July 3

Maybe I would’ve been better off with some trust issues, but instead, I had none when I should have plenty. That meant I trusted my whole life with Zoltar when anybody could offer up some small change for him to get any card like the one we got. 

**You are destined to be together forever**. 

It had to be true. It had to be real. I couldn’t let it be anything but that, which meant I left Bev and Ben behind to chase down Bowers with no weapon in hand.

Instead, I pushed right past a few people hanging out and smoking on the loading dock. None of them said anything ‘cause good. I kept running on with no idea where I was headed but I had some psychic compass in my head. It pulled me straight along some twisting and turning hallways until I came before a door simply labeled, security.

Right when I reached out to touch it, the door moved. I wasn’t alone. It’d be hard to be alone anyway. The door opened as Bowers came out, he had guns on him. I knew nothing about guns but there were several strapped to him (I guess). He pulled a black ski mask over his face and wasn’t even looking at me. All I caught was a glimpse of inside the room where three security guards sat; only there were now bullets in their heads as they watched security footage with dead eyes.

I stood there unable to connect my thoughts with any other part of my body. _RUN_ no or _SCREAM_ or wait _PUNCH_. Instead of doing any of those, I tripped over myself when Bowers turned to see me. He grumbled a HEY! because by that point he had to know it wasn’t some grand fucking coincidence I was there. My tailbone struck the floor hard enough to send pain sparks up and down my spine. I felt them in my head and then. . .

**WHAAACK**!

Bev stood over me with a metal bat in hand, she sliced it through the air and straight into Bowers face knocking him out cold. He was down for the count but something wasn’t right. Crawling across the ground, I picked at his mask managing to get it off. Just I didn’t look at Bowers, not him at all. It was Vic Criss and I was so fucking glad Bev’s bat broke a bunch of his teeth. Hope he choked on teeth shards.

I rose to my feet. If Hockstetter was dead and Hockstetter had friends that meant Bowers also wasn’t the only one left. Stupid. Stupid. How could I be so stupid?! Right before Betty died, she’d been with Criss. Both Criss and Bowers were present when I reported Hockstetter who needed to be out of the equation then I ran into Bowers again later with him asking about Hockstettter then he literally ran into me with his car.

“. . .Richie. . .” 

I knew she wasn’t looking at me, could sense something that was quite off. Probably because she saw dead bodies watching security footage. Rather than respond, I peeled back some of Criss’s sleeve looking at his wrist to spot that same whole tattoo spiel.

The same as it ever was.

“. . .Richie. . .” Bev started to tap my shoulder and I looked up to see all the screens out leaving us blind in the word. 

Somehow the bodachs were messing with me. Not once did I see them huddling around Criss. Not once did I see them caressing Bowers. Just Hockstetter who was pointless by then. Long dead. I stared at those blank screens only to hear a few screams. Not from by us but beyond the walls and inside the mall. There was nothing else back where we were. Nobody else walked around, not a bodach in sight either because all of it, all of it was beyond these walls.

“I can try to get them working again,” Ben interrupted.

“We need to call the police. . .” whispered Bev.

“No, Bev, the police are here.” I grabbed a pistol off Criss checking it to see what ammunition I had to work with, seemed like a good starting point even though I knew nothing about guns other than point and shoot. Bullets? I had five. Bowers would have a lot more but more screams grew along with a steady sound of explosions. Eddie’s out there.

“Ok, but we can’t. . .” Bev started to protest but fuck that.

I was gone, I already barrelled through some doors into the mall where chaos was vomited everywhere. All I needed was to follow the pull, I’d find Bowers with my five chances at stopping him. And I fucking would. Right? Right.

“RICHIE! NO!” Bev screamed after me, her words were pretty lost with everybody else.

It wasn’t about any of them, I wish I could say it was but it was about Eddie and a promise somebody once made us, **You are destined to be together forever**.


	22. July 3 - 11:47 AM (Eddie)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **TW: This does deal with a mass shooting at the mall, in case you don't know Odd Thomas.**
> 
> Eddie calls Richie only to realize, he's the one in danger.

### 11:47 AM on July 3

Eddie knew he wasn’t going to get a hold of Richie from the start, but a guy can dream. Right at the beep, he sighed louder than he realized. Served Richie right. He could probably hear that eye roll but his voice hiked up a pitch remembering why he needed to call. He had to call because of. . .

“BOWERS! RICHIE! IT’S BOWERS! Your missing puzzle piece, the person working with Hockstetter has to be Bowers. Mike told us some stories and I figured it out.” Eddie paused. His call was about straight-up useless because Richie’d hear it maybe after everything or never ‘cause he’d delete it out of embarrassment. Another sigh, less eye roll that time around. Eddie admitted, “Hey Chee! I fucking told you how _we_ ’re a team, but you tried to sound all like the brave and the bold on me. Guess if I stayed with you or if we stayed at my place, which was obviously the best decision seeing that you got hit by a car by BOWERS, our EEENEMY. Life’d be better. Anyway, hurry the fuck up with whatever you’re doing and don’t go cracking any mom jokes. I’m not in the mood. I’ll see you soon. Saved my lunch for you.” Eddie came close to hanging up before he added one hell of an awkward, “Love. . .I love you. See ya around, _Richard_.” 

For real, he hung up that round before getting his inhaler from his locker and took two puffs. He kept it in his hand even as he went out to the front of the store looking at how the line was close to dying down but more people were in the food court. So many conversations outweighed the fake bird noises. Some music played over their mall radio. Thank God, it wasn’t Christmas because they’d be listening to weird holiday jingles nonstop. When he first started at the mall, Feliz Navidad haunted him all year round. He could hear the words singing in all corners of every other song.

Eddie leaned into the counter grabbing onto his scooper only to pause because he saw Mike and Stan sitting around. It looked like they got some fries to share while chatting and laughing and there was something about it that irked his heart. Yeah, him and Richie were like that all the time but it wasn’t like they could ever be real light-hearted. There were all sorts of things that haunted him, trust issues holding him back thinking that whenever somebody gave him any bit of attention or told him he looked sick, he looked tired, asked if he was doing ok was to control him. Oh, and Richie saw fucking ghosts.

As far as Eddie knew, neither Stan nor Mike had any those problems yet they had their own other problems. Ones he’d never get and maybe it wasn’t anything to be jealous of. Couldn’t stop the feeling prickling there. Some part of him wanted to call Richie again but leave some sort of joke message to him.

The mall radio felt louder than usual catching his attention, his eyes drifted up at those speakers. Funny, he knew the song but couldn’t place it. It hit some familiar note way back in the far reaches of his mind. Richie kind of music.

Eddie bobbed to the music, tapped his fingers along the glass before deciding he deserved a sample of his own. Plenty of new bizarre flavors to try. He could almost sing the words to the song. Such Richie music and all his weird drama and nicknames of Eds, Eddie Spaghetti, and his least favorite being Eddie, my love. It wasn’t even a fucking nickname just his name with ‘my love’ thrown onto the end. Also, Eddie didn’t want to talk about whether it was sweet or not.

_Listen to the wind blow, down comes the night. Running in the shadows, damn your love, damn your lies, break the silence, damn the dark, damn the light, and if you don’t love me now, you will never love me again._

Richie and his ridiculous gift of the Zoltar card hanging up in his room over his bed promising them some whole life together. According to fate, they were meant to be together forever whether they wanted to be or not. Eddie wanted that, but like to keep his mind open to potential options. Just. You never know. Right? Things can’t be _that_ good all the time.

_I can still hear you saying, you would never break the chain._

Eddie almost spat out ice cream half forgetting where he stood. Ok, so goat cheese and peach ice cream was not one that he liked. He stuck his tongue out regretting the decision and needing a whole new flavor.

His coworker spoke up, “Yeah, I felt the same.”

Second round was dedicated to the classic cilantro lime ice cream because it was something his mom would’ve hated and for that alone. It tasted great. Eddie stood there sucking on the popsicle stick meant for samples when he heard some fireworks go off. He looked around not sure where they were happening. Music played. Fake birds sang. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Stan fall from his seat before slowly rising up as he blindly reached out for Mike without ever grabbing onto him and Eddie heard some louder screaming and it all suddenly made sense.

From across the room, Stan gawked at him. His dream. It was happening. Eddie had no idea he was ever meant to be in it though. Stan and Mike die. Stan and Mike are going to die. A lot of people are going to die. Suddenly glass started to break around them as the explosions kept on, not fireworks. Stan and Mike, they’re in danger. Not him, right?

But once such a long time ago when Richie and him were lying around in the middle of the road tempting death, Richie told him some random philosophy only to blame it on the weed later.

Eddie kinda always sort of felt, Richie’s words had a point: _Fate’s not a straight road. There are many forks in it. You have the free will to choose which one you take, but sometimes, it will bend around and bring you straight back to that same stubborn fate_.


	23. July 3 - 12:24 PM (Bev)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bev notices something is up.

### 12:24 on July 3

“Shouldn’t we do something?” Ben looked at Bev while she spoke.

But she was focused instead on a single screen that worked. The rest were black. Any insight to the mall was gone, which left her watching the loading dock as somebody moved around on a big white van. It looked out of place compared to the rest of the loading dock. Nobody else came near it.

“Hey, Bev,” Ben continued and touched her arm.

Bev yelped, she covered her mouth turning a little red. “You startled me.”

“Sorry. But shouldn’t we do something? What about Richie? The police?”

Except Bev looked down at Criss again before she looked up at the screen, she squinted trying to make out what was happening and there was probably all of one person in the world she knew who still sported a mullet, Bowers.

“Can’t, Ben, the police are here and they’re the problem.” Bev backed up grabbing her bat from earlier. “We gotta get Richie. Look. . .” She stood there pointing at the screen and maybe Ben figured it out or not. Didn’t matter because she was gone already chasing after Richie without any idea to where in the world he went out there. Just that he was in the mall running straight into danger. 

Some people milling about got in her way, she shoved them to the side. Up ahead some people are shouting or cheering or laughing, it’s impossible to tell because some gunshots break through the mall and Bev almost fell face-first into the ground. Each popping sound knocked her off balance. No, none of that made sense because the problem was Bowers and Bowers was on the loading dock but there was Criss out there on the loading dock, too, and unconscious. 

Whatever was happening was happening and it wasn’t like any of them were going to stop it. This time around, people are sprinting forward away from the danger and into her forcing her to push along thinking about Richie and only Richie but there are others to consider, too, because also something else was happening and maybe she should’ve just instead gone outside to stop it. Too late.


	24. July 3 - 12:24 PM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **TW: This does deal with a mass shooting at the mall, in case you don't know Odd Thomas.**
> 
> Richie runs out to stop Bowers hoping to save everybody but this isn't close to being over.

### 12:24 PM on July 3

Maybe I’m dramatic but forever means _forever_ , right? As in a real fucking long time. 

It takes more than a lifetime to get to know a person and chances are forever comes real close to it. That’s what Zoltar promised during the Derry Canal Day Festival. It was sticky hot out that day, too. Full of fried food and cotton candy making it a whole lot worse. People cheering. People screaming. People running around everywhere. Me palming a quarter while we waited around to drop a quarter into the Zoltar machine. The whole time Eddie waited there with me even though his mother would probably kill him if she knew we were out and about with each other.

Me cracking the usual shitty joke: _So. . .what are we asking? Who’s got a bigger dick?_

Eddie shaking his head even though he usually lived for such a back and forth challenge. The sort of comments that made teachers blush and teachers yell at us, to get us out of the classroom and into so many different detentions. 

When my parents were my parents, they were so pissed ‘cause I’d have the grades but somehow still managed to fail. 

Chief and Karla then became my parents but it seemed a lot worse ‘cause they were disappointed by all my high scores on tests and homework and essays but low overall grade cause I couldn’t ever shut the fuck up in class.

Me continuing my bad joke routine: _Yeah, wouldn’t make sense. We know the answer to that question already._

And Eddie. ever annoyed but never ready to give up, wasn’t about to stay silent: _I’m asking the question._

But fuck that because I wouldn’t let him. In front of us some couple I can’t even remember wouldn’t let the sour answers Zoltar told them about their relationship go. Their faces are nothing but smears whenever I attempt to picture their eyes, ears, nose, mouth, or whatever usual suspect people have. 

Zoltar kept saying weird shit to them like: _The fool leaps from the cliff, but the winter lake below is frozen._

Who the fuck was I to declare Eddie and I’d live a life together, forever? People don’t get that kinda luck in life. Especially people like us. Just. Life. It’s full of such shit. There’s no such thing as lasting happiness, it’s such bullshit. A big fucking lie.

But. . .I needed to clear such thoughts, beat back the past to focus on the absolute present as it came colliding into me. No time to pretend I knew a thing about philosophy 101 or some other shit. Instead, I pressed forward chasing after some sort of pull. Somewhere before me was Bowers and Bowers about to kill and I was dragged along only no, wait. . .I was already too late.

People were already suffering. They were on the ground sobbing and crying out, injured and about to leave this world but I don’t think it’s my place to talk about their pain. I don’t know them and I don’t know their names and I sprinted straight past them into a crowd that attempted to run away. 

Bodachs sloughed across the ceiling and sides. Up ahead I spotted Bowers though. Fuck them. Fuck him. I pulled people away from me but for the most part, people got out of my way because they needed to get out of Bowers’ way and I respected that. I tried to run a lot faster but there were all these upturned tables, a disaster of the food court and I couldn’t hear any of those fake birds cry and we were right by Eddie. . .so close to Eddie.

I almost fell face first over a bodach. Some fell down on me, their bodies melting and heavier than the world ‘cause out of all the people crouching almost in eyesight was Stan and Mike. Neither of them noticed me there. Stan who dreamt of this. Stan who died in this. Stan who also dreamt and saw the death of Mike beside him. The two crouched looking right at one single location that I couldn’t bare to look at.

Whipping bodach sludge from me, I pulled forward knowing a few things about guns. _Point and shoot_ and I fucking took that gun pointing it right at Bowers’ face while he hung onto a much bigger gun. He slowly faced me not realizing how quick I made it across there even with melting creatures trying to tear me down into the ground and my finger pulled the trigger. Pain shook through all the bones and nerves in my arm almost knocking me off my feet because that-that I didn’t expect.

One last loud BANG and then nothing.

And.

Fuck.

I used my other hand to wipe tears away. 

My gun shaken hand still quaked from the BANG. I lost my grip on the gun while I stared down at Bowers. He wore a mask and all sorts of gear. Death bound to him. Music and birds started up again, not that they ever left though. Just couldn’t hear them over all the fear or maybe I wasn’t hearing anything at all ‘cause my ears rang and rang and rang. 

Eddie. . .

I turned so fast almost losing my footing, the floor was slick with soda, blood, and sweat and straight across from me. I saw Eddie standing there behind the counter at the ice cream place. He was splattered in mint green ice cream and I choked on some of my tears unable to catch my breath after all of that running and anxiety. Eddie stood there offering up a slow wave. Off to the side, I could make out Stan and Mike as they rose to their feet looking from me and Bowers back to Eddie standing there.

“RICHIE!” Bev screamed, it shattered any semblance of peace.

I looked back at her. Bev stood there signaling me to follow and worse, my feet said so, too. It wasn’t over. This wasn’t over. None of this was over and I was already too late. Fuck. Fuck! I reached down prying the bloody mask from Bowers’ face to find it wasn’t even Bowers lying there which then meant. . .

Bowers was still out there.

Some other guy laid at my feet. A guy who tried to save Betty. A guy who came into Hockstetter’s place all angry about money. Him yelling out HOCKSTETTER! while I felt like I was gonna die while hanging out in that dreadful place where cockroaches crawled and shrines to murderers waited. I really lost my balance taking a few steps backward. No longer armed and dangerous, not that I ever was dangerous.

Again, Bev screamed, “RICHIE!” Just that time it was with something a little extra. The world was about to end.

I looked back over one at the ice cream shop while Stan and Mike scrambled their way over to Eddie who just stood there, gawking at me. Mint green splattered uniform. Everything was going to be ok. It was going to be ok. This wasn’t over but. . .it’d be ok.

Eddie. . .

Eddie gasped for air, he leaned into the counter, both hands splayed across the cracked glass there but he never once looked away from me. Not even as Stan stumbled into the place. Unable to find my own voice, maybe I was dead and noiseless, but I’d hope I’d at least know when I died. Still, without words to shout out loud, I mouthed, _Sorry, Eds_.

Eddie stood there still staring, he sucked in his lips and nodded.

It felt more like permission. No, something more, it wasn’t you _have_ do do this or you _should_ do this, but instead. Eddie let me remember: I _will_ stop this.

And so, I turned and ran because Bev headed wherever I needed to go. Some force drew me out of there and none of this was over and fucking Bowers. Eddie wouldn’t even be alone. And again, I ran even faster somehow managing to catch up with Bev.

“B-Bowers. . .!” she gasped leading the way.

Straight past her, I spotted Betty Ripsom running, too. She looked at me screaming my name, not that I heard her because the dead were always noiseless. _Richie!_ Her shoes were gone and her life was a mess seeing that she was dead. Murdered. Don’t know why. Maybe I’d find out why. Not the time though. Instead, I chased after Bev and Betty as they led me back toward the loading docks where none of this was over.


	25. July 3 - 12:37 PM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's also a bomb.

### 12:37 PM on July 3

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. _This isn’t over! It’s not over! Fuck, it’s not over!_ But I needed it to end. Needed it to be over five or more minutes ago.

My brain felt all feeble and some shit just at the thought that none of it was over as I chased after Bev and Betty only to fall right off the loading platform. Pain sparked up but not enough to stop me. That or pain was near impossible with all that adrenaline fucking with my brain.

“It’s-It’s a bomb!” Ben kept shouting. He opened up the back of some van and he had a point because he was right. A bomb sat in the back of it, ticking down toward the end. “There’s a bomb! It’s a bomb! A bomb!”

“FFFFFFFFUCK!” blurted Bev as she struggled to stay put.

My ankle hurt. I could almost sense it while not knowing at the same time. It hurt and didn’t hurt as I limped over to them looking at the back of that van. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! 

There’s less than a half-hour left, which meant we had time to work with. But there’s no casual bomb squad in Derry and the police set this shit up. 

“Wh-Wh-What do we do?” Ben looked at Bev.

Some bodach caught my attention as it turned to the side, scurrying away from us. I turned feeling caught up in slow motion. Because pain, pain, pain and I realized scraping away from us was Bowers, so easy to spot with his outdated shit mullet. He made his way off the loading dock while clinging to a backpack. The bodach leaped straight into him, disappearing, out of sight, making it hard to tell if Bowers was just Bowers or the bodach took control. Didn’t even fucking matter ‘cause Bowers swung around to face us, armed. Bev and Ben only started to notice some new fuckery was up by the way I stared.

Just. 

“Run!” I blurted right before a gunshot clipped my voice. 

Bowers marched forward squeezing the trigger. Run wasn’t even what I really meant while the world kept on moving all slow. A whole actual bullet grazed Ben’s leg. It missed me and Bev. She screamed, catching him as he fell face first and I turned away from him shoving those doors shut. 

That was as much of an explosion as the next set of bullets. If only I were some guy who knew how many he had in his gun or how many he had left. I didn’t know a thing about a gun other than point and shoot and didn’t even have one anymore.

. . .I killed a guy. . .

Pain exploded straight through me, knocking me off balance and into the van. I spotted my blood first, splattered across the white paint and I hit the ground. Half kneeling there, I touched my palm to an actual bullet wound. He shot me. Bowers shot me. I dreamt of my death and there it fucking was unraveling before me.

But Eddie was inside still. Standing there, splattered in mint ice cream, stained green from his uniform. 

With him was Stan and Mike, two great guys with a whole lot of other people. Some people who I’m sure really suck but I don’t know or really give a fuck about that. Bev and Ben are there. On the ground, she hugged Ben and I could see them underneath the van, out and off to the side and somehow even in all that pain, I shrugged forward with my knees still scraping the ground. So much worse pain to the point I was pretty sure I’d pass right the fuck out.

Yet somehow I got inside of it, keys stuck in the ignition. My lucky day. I twisted them and slammed it into reverse speeding toward Bowers who continued to head right after me. All Terminator and shit, he kept shooting and shooting. Bullets popped off the side of the van. Sparks flew up and I backed into Bowers running over him because fuck him! 

Only. There was a bomb still inside, ticking away. I forced the van into drive and sped off as much I could. The wheels hissing along the way, I could smell the burning as all of me hurt and somewhere back there I’m pretty sure Bev screamed after me, “RIIICHIE!”

There had to be a better away. My blood was all hot and sticky and not ready to stop any time soon ‘cause that’s not how life works. It flooded my side. I glanced down at my side as I continued to rage forward, foot holding down the gas pedal. The Barrens was about to hate me ‘cause I had only one stupid idea, drive straight into it. Let the bomb kill all those trees.

Still, there had to be a better way. I just couldn’t think of one ‘cause fuck, I’d never even seen an actual bomb until just a few minutes ago.


	26. July 3 - 12:50 PM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie fights to get the bomb away from the mall.

### 12:50 on July 3

I’d been shot. Like I’d actually been shot by an actual fucking very real bullet and yet still had something else on my brain: 

**Get the bomb out.**

There was a whole lotta blood sinking out of me and somehow I ended up driving the van away pretty sure Bev’s voice continued to ring in my head. Wasn’t like Eds was around to tell me _NO_! Just Bev yet again shouting RIIIIIICHIE after me all while I kept driving. My foot firmly placed on the gas pedal and I accelerated the fuck outta there. Glad Eds wasn’t even there. He still stood back at the ice cream place splattered in mint green. Safer than the rest of us. Uninjured like the rest of us. It was time to say goodbye. 

**Get the bomb out.**

Those bodachs were all that wanted me dead and gone. Their fingers scraped across the van unable to keep ahold as I lurched forward and forward still knowing my exact destination was The Barrens. Most important was getting that bomb away from Eds. 

Getting it far away from Eddie but also getting it away from Stan, Mike, Bev, and Ben. All of them deserved better. Same with all those other strangers hanging out and around the mall as per usual. But like. Yeah. Fuck yeah, they all deserved better. Didn’t change the fact I really did it for just one person.

**Get the bomb out.**

I pretended I could dig my foot more into the gas pedal, to go faster even though car horns screamed at me, warning me to slow the fuck down. That and stay the fuck in my lane. But my van’s bigger than them all so they’ll have to suck it. They gotta let me go and most people steer out of the way. All of one sideswiped the van in an attempt to escape. (Sorry stranger.) The impact rocked my head into the window. The kind of head bump where you see some stars.

But man, at least the road was straight, headed right to the Barrens. Just kept my foot down to keep on going, I’m going, and I’m going and smash, glass struck my face. I screamed more startled than in pain. Look gunshot pain was still the absolute worst on my list. Way far above the glass shards coming close to embedding in my face. But still. Fuck!

**Get the bomb out.**

Motherfucking Bowers came straight through the window at me. His body shredded so much already between me running over him and the glass of the window. Still, his one hand reached out grabbing onto me, pulling me closer. Him still halfway in and my foot too into this whole gas pedal thing. With one hand on the wheel, I used the other to swat at him. He should be dead. Motherfucker looked dead. Yet there he was, he was batting right at me, still armed and right when I really needed a free hand to find something, anything to hold the gas pedal down.

Screaming at Bowers, I managed to land a good enough slap to the face, wish I could call it a punch though. “WHY WON’T YOU DIE!!”

Die he still did not. Nope, instead, his fingers squirmed into my bullet wound. He had a pistol in hand and used it to whip across the tender wound then into my face. I screamed, biting down on anything and everything before me. First I got hair then I got an ear then a fist caught his face and next I had his gun, all heavy as fuck and everything or at least heavy enough that I let it fall onto the gas pedal as we flew forward. 

I did my best fake shoulder roll to the side, Bowers still digging his fingers into my wound. Me not sure what I’m crying about. I mean, was it the pain or all those people I didn’t save? (Pain!) 

Struggling as much as I could, I managed to both drag Bowers inside more and make it to the next seat. At that point, I was pretty sure Bowers wasn’t gonna stop. Some Terminator shit, he had to be. On the opposite seat, I yelled at him, “Yippee-ki-yay Motherfucker!” And managed one hell of a kick, straight to the face. Nose crunch and all. Bowers slumped over a bit in the seat, gas pedal still pushed into the ground. Bomb in the back of the van. 

With a hand, I pulled the door open and simply hoped for the best. I’d be fine, right? Right?! I mean, if anything were to kill me it’d be the bullet wound by this point. Dreams of being shot over and over again. Wind basically captured me and with the help of some gravity I fell out hearing my shoulder _pop_ straight out of its socket and some road rash biting into me. Lying there I felt ok-ish, as ok for a person who’d just gotten punched, beat up, and jumped out of the window. I’d be ok, right? Right?!

I mean, Zoltar promised: **You are destined to be together forever.**

But what a stupid and out of character thing to rely on again and again. Anybody could’ve paid twenty-five cents and gotten the same answer or another.

Lying there, I couldn’t move. Not even lean my head one way or another cause pain, pain, pain. It was just all up in there. Clenching my teeth, I waited and waited and waited and **BOOM**. The explosion probably knocked some fillings loose. No idea if I got it off the road into some safer place. Sorry trees for choosing human life over you.

The whole world rang and rang and rang, and time struck an odd assortment of moves. Couldn’t tell how long I laid out there but some driver must’ve stopped and waved in my face. They seemed to pass in and out of sight like they clung to an invisibility problem. The world rang too much for me to hear a word he said. All I wanted was to sleep, just sleep. Sleep for maybe a month and wake up recovered without any effort put toward it.

A day or two later the FBI congratulated me, letting me know the number of lives I saved.

Right then and there though, all I could hear was ringing in my ears. My fingers brushed across the bullet wound but somebody was there trying to stop the bleeding but my hand kept striking him. “Shit, shit shit, I’m still bleeding,” I kept telling him and he probably said something along the lines right back at me, “You’re gonna be ok, just hang in there.”

Didn’t matter though.

I got the bomb out.


	27. July 4 - ??:??

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie wakes up in a hospital.

### ??:?? on July 4

A whole century could’ve passed and I’d have no idea other than maybe bizarre technology hanging out all around me. Normal technology beeped beside me. Had the whole blood spiel and heart monitor hooked up to me. Didn’t want to think about what else. I’d get there whenever I got there. I looked at what looked more like a tangled mess to me than individual life saving shit. Felt a tug beside me and rolled my head over to find Eds sitting there. 

He smiled.

Eds opened his mouth about to say something when a nurse burst into the room. Thought they were supposed to knock first. Eds snapped his attention to her before she spoke up. She had a clipboard in hand but gawked at me there. 

“Oh my God!” The nurse leaned her head out into the hallway. “HE’S AWAKE! HE’S AWAKE!”

And look, hear me out, I appreciated the love and all but I wanted a moment of just me and Eds.

Instead, Bev came sprinting into the room with Karla. Bev shouting, “RICHIE!” and Karla yelling, “RICH!” 

Behind them was Chief who rolled up into the room in a wheelchair. Wasn’t just him. Ben was there with his one arm all wrapped up and dangling in a sling. Stan was there, his face all bandaged up and Mike there, too. Looked about the same for him, too. Some bandages on the face. Had to be all the glass and shrapnel flying through the mall. His arms looked pretty beat up, too.

Chief mentioned, “Glad you’re awake, kid.” 

While Stan stood there with his signature sad smile, he was the only one who didn’t come all the away into the room. Mike and Ben both are smiling at me, too, but look a bit happier. Not by much. Stan won just ‘cause he was basically sadness. 

“Beep, Beep,” Ben said and Mike said, “Hey.”

I started to sit up but Eddie put out a hand to keep me lying down. I glanced at him with a little grin, just for him. Eddie smiled back and sniffled. Good thing he wasn’t as cut up as the rest of them. No cuts and no big bruises. An actual miracle considering he’d been behind the counter space at work.

I stayed put, “Hey. . .”

Bev came the closest to me. “I can’t believe you did all of that. How do you feel?”

“Um, ok. Must be the drugs.”

Bev nodded. “Yeah. . .the drugs.”

Karla and Chief came a little closer to the bed. He held her hand the whole time even though she kept wriggling her fingers around until she burst into tears. Chief spoke up for the two of them, “Can’t believe we both got shot in the same week. What are the chances?”

“Apparently really high,” I replied.

Eddie looked down to stifle his laugh. Good ‘cause nobody else did.

“How are you doing with. . .” Chief started, but he lost the end of that sentence. “At least _you_ don’t have to go through heart surgery.”

I didn’t laugh. “Yeah. Best consolation prize.”

The door opened up again as the nurse returned with the doctor, “I’m going to need everybody to take a step out of the room. I’d like to speak with my patient here in private.” The doctor smiled at me. “Or should I say my hero?”

“Please don’t,” I retorted. “Like. . .don’t ever say that again.”

“See you later,” whispered Bev before she went over to Ben. The two stood ever so close to one another. They left. Everybody but Eds.

Only Eds got up, too, he was gonna leave. He patted the side of my bed before exiting with the rest of them leaving me behind to talk about some medical bullshit. Time to face the truth, which didn’t seem ideal. 

But more importantly, everything was going to be ok.


	28. July 9 - 4:23 PM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie's released from the hospital and hangs out with Eddie.
> 
> Then Chief and everybody else shows up.

### 4:23 PM on July 9

Turned out the facts were what follows:

  * Bowers and his gang worshiped some ‘cosmic’ entity they called Pennywise.
  * We’d never know the whole story, but apparently their entity wanted a lot of people dead.
  * Each member of Bowers Gang had the same tattoo.

  * The first time they killed was Bill’s kid brother, Georgie. Ended a cold case.



Then some other more surprising facts:

  * Learn my limits on being the center of attention.
  * Everybody wanted to talk to me, Bev, and Ben. Saved all those lives. 
  * I wanted nothing to do with the interviews.
  * I’m 95% sure when interviewed, people didn’t like my jokes.



Staying in the hospital was a perfect excuse to not talk to reporters or walk around and have people get all choked up and some bullshit. The moment I got the ok to leave though. Which was fan-fucking-tastic.

Just instructions on shit like wash hands after removing the old dressing. Avoid any lotion. Showers over bath, couldn’t let the wound soak. And so on and so on and so on. The only surprising thing was leaving the hospital with Eddie not making a comment on the chaos and us just going back to his place to crash, out of sight. I imagined my place was swarming with officers and it sucked.

Anyway, hanging out in an actual bed felt like real recovery. Before lying down with Eds, I unplugged the phone so not a person could reach out to us. Just fuck them. Let us stay together. And we did, we just laid there for hours, about as noiseless as ever until I couldn’t take it anymore. Needed to return to being the center of attention.

“No, wait!” I flipped over, moving too fast and had Eds pinned to the bed there. He looked at me all wide-eyed while I kept a finger over his lips. “Just hold on, hear me out.”

Eds nodded, I kept my finger over his lips and laughed for some reason.

“Ok, just, look this is going to sound so _gay_ because it is, it’s gay, it’s the gayest fucking thing I’ll ever say so don’t you dare tell anybody else. Got it?”

Eds nodded again and I pulled my hand away, using both to hold myself up above him. 

“Ok. . .” I trailed away feeling my face get a little too hot. It was just so fucking embarassing. “I just-I just wanted to say that you’re a jerk, but you’re my favorite jerk. One could even say, you’re my favorite dick and that’s pretty cool.”

At that, Eds covered his face cracking up. His laughter caused his whole body to shake, I rolled off him burying my face into my pillow and groaned. Why the fuck did I say that. But already I rolled onto my back again. Way too much movement. So much movement, my stitches felt ready to rip open then blood would get all over the place. Mess up Eddie’s mattress.

I sighed tilting my head to the side to find Eds gazing at me there. He rolled his eyes but I spotted a smile there.

“WE. . .should eat ice cream?”

Eds nodded.

“Good, you should go get it because.” I pointed at my stomach. “I almost died.”

Eds offered up another huge eye roll in response before climbing out of bed and leaving to the kitchen. I stayed there looking up at that framed little detail: **You are destined to be together forever.**

“I hope Zoltar comes back this summer! We need an update about us!”

Before Eddie could respond, somebody started to pound on the door. All dramatic as fuck, too. I heard the fridge opening and closing or really the freezer ‘cause ice cream. The knocking continued then I heard the scraping of keys, the spare key. Instead, _I_ got out of bed to see what was up. The little peep hole was all broke meaning I needed to open right up and did so while yelling, “WHAT?”

Felt bad about it right away. 

Chief had been the one banging on the door. Shit, he probably thought I went home-home then never answered the phone or showed up to answer the door. Karla clung to his one hand. Bev wiped some tears away inhaling real deep while Ben patted her back. Stan and Mike stood there looking about as sad as ever, nothing new there.

“Shit, sorry,” I whispered. “Sorry.”

“You weren’t answering the phone. . .” Bev choked some words out.

“I know-I know sorry, I unplugged the phone.”

Chief smiled at me and touched my shoulder. I glanced over at the kitchen making out Eds who stood there with a carton of ice cream in hand and a spoon hanging out on his tongue. He waved. I looked back at Chief who just gave me the weirdest fucking look ever. I couldn’t define it.

And all he said, “Richie. . .this has to stop.”


	29. July 9 - 4:36 PM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bad news.

### 4:36 on July 9

I stared at Chief unsure how to process those words: _Richie. . .this has to stop._

What was that supposed to even mean? ‘Cause I sure remember all of my life as a kid when I’d complain about some kids at school and Chief’d warn me to not be the center of attention. That too often I gave kids _fuel_ to harass me then the one damn time I decide to hide out of the spotlight, he marched right up to me to tell me: 

_Richie. . .this has to stop._

“I just. . .I just don’t want to talk to interviewers,” I found a response after letting some of that angst get out of the system. Replying with a _What the fuck_ felt a little over the top. “It’s not a big deal, I can just plug the phone back in. Problem solved.”

Everybody began exchanging some looks and Bev tapped Chief’s arm before coming a little closer to me. He sucked in his lips making no other comment. But before she could get a word out, Stan spoke up simply saying, “Richie. . .” And while that kid can be the saddest or the angriest kid in the world sometimes. Something didn’t sit right with the quick, to the point, not sad way he said my name.

Bev sighed toying with the edge of her sweatshirt’s sleeves until she got out the following words, “The coroner-The coroner released his body to be cremated.” 

I squinted at her before glancing back at Eds who continued to stay put with the ice cream carton in hand and spoon in his mouth. I looked at Bev again. “Bowers? Why would I care about that? Or any of them. Fuck them, unless we get to cremate their remains then maybe you have my interest.”

Bev breathing trembled. “ _Richie_. . .” Pretty sure she was about to say something else when instead she stood on her toes looking over my shoulder at Eds who waved. “Wait, Eddie’s here isn’t he?”

“Weird. _This_ is Eddie’s place so yeah, he’s here.”

“Like right here? He’s here?!” Bev gawked at me before shooting a look mainly back at Stan, Mike, and Ben. Chief spent too much time comforting Karla. “Where is he?”

The fuck?!

Cause Bev continued to stand on her toes looking right at Eds there except-except. . .maybe I just somehow knew from the start. Somewhere deep down inside of me. 

That moment. 

Turning around I looked at Eds again but this time, it wasn’t quite the same. Instead, he stood around back in his ice cream splattered uniform but it wasn’t ever splattered with ice cream, was it? Well, yeah, maybe some. But there’d been a lot of blood. So much blood.

“Richie,” it was Stan again, but I couldn’t look back at him. Not right then and there while Eds and I stared right at one another. “Richie, c’mon, ask yourself about ghosts, I’ve heard you mention one important thing about them in passing. We all have, you’re bad at secrets.”

They’re noiseless.

Eds and I stood staring at one another unable to unlock eye contact.

“You always say that thing, that thing where. . .” continued Stan.

They’re noiseless.

I may talk a lot but. . .

“ _Richie_. . .” Bev got more words in. Her voice all caught up in her own tears by that point. “Eddie wouldn’t ever be super quiet, right? I know. I hear you two bickering like all the time.”

“You two never shut up,” added Chief.

The dead don’t speak.

To think of it, Eds hasn’t spoken since I first woke up yet I could’ve sworn, could’ve sworn we talked and talked and talked that he even mocked me for all the stupid shit I kept saying to him about having him around. All his fears of being in a situation, what PTSD does to the stomach and what would happen over time if his bladder weakens at such a young age and so on. Really, any time the nurse or doctor visited, Eds would’ve asked them to wash their hands.

“You have to let him go,” Ben spoke up. “He’d want you to do that.” But what did Ben fucking know?

I took a whole step closer to Eds but had to stop afraid of what it’d mean if I stood with him. Instead, I held my hand out and Eds touched my hand offering up some sort of smile. As much of a smile a dead person could muster. He said something. His lips formed words I couldn’t make out because too much of the world shook all around me. I couldn’t breathe. I really couldn’t breathe. I needed his fucking inhaler and I couldn’t even ask him where he’d left it. If I did, there’d be no answer.

“Say something!” blurted Bev.

“Richie. . .” Mike got a word in and for some reason I looked at him first still holding onto Eds. “We don’t really know each other but I know Ed and. . .”

And what? What’s he gonna add? More bullshit?

“He’s going to wanna stay but. . .”

Some reason, all I said was “Eds.”

He can’t stay. I apparently needed to let him go. I had to let him go.

Again, I looked back at Eds biting down on my lip as hard as possible to make sure everything happening was about as real as possible. Pain bubbled up with some blood. Taste and pain meant I was in a living nightmare rather than one in the dead of sleep.

I still held onto Eds which was really me holding onto nothing and everything all at the same time. That time around I was sure I made out him mouthing, _Richie?_

“What?” I managed.

_Don’t call me Eds._

Ok, I knew those words enough to read them on his lips and let go. We’d meet again, right? Yeah, we’d meet again. Shaking his head, Eds backed away and almost straight out of the place no longer really belonging on this plane, if he ever even did. Hard to say. Again, he mouthed something to me but I couldn’t catch all the words. 

_You know I. . ._ For real, Eds passed through a window and stood outside, a ghost but still everything real that he’d ever been. “. . .I. . .” Whatever came next I missed as he faded from sight. He fell apart as most ghosts do, returning to nature as leaves and petals. Stupid. What the fuck did he wanna say there? **You know I don’t like it** or **You know I love you**. 

Even with it being too late, I said back to him: “Wait, what?!” 

Bev already had her arms around me, her face buried in my shoulder with Stan there also. He tilted his head to the side a bit then hugged and Mike joined sort of murmuring a _sorry_ before Ben joined. I hung there between them looking out the window unable to catch any further sign of Eds. Didn’t wanna cry, didn’t matter because of course, I sobbed, partially collapsing there, everybody just dropped down with me so we could sit there and mourn. 

And somehow just like _that_ , Eddie’s gone but not for good. 


	30. July 9 - Later PM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie listens to some messages.

### Later PM on July 9

It didn’t seem fair that I could see ghosts and somehow Eddie and I were no longer seeing each other. 

And yet some of those ghosts were stuck with us but Eddie moved on. 

Which then meant, I came home alone feeling about as empty as I could. Just a shell of who I’d been. Outside I sat for a while in the back of Bev’s car with Ben up front with her.

She’d asked: _Do you want me to come inside with you?_

I honestly barely remembered any beat after my brain connected everything.

Eddie’s gone.

Somehow my brain still couldn’t bring up the real word of the situation.

Eddie’s dead.

I told her: _No, thanks._

Her instant response: _Is it ok if I stay here in the care then?_

I’m pretty sure I glared right at her. Already said no. Ben touched the back of her hand. I got out of the car. Ended up back in my place with something I needed to do.

Dishes!

No, they’re done. But also the idea of scrubbing them sucked and whatever gross ass food I left on them.

Dinner!

I looked at my kitchen again. No, I couldn’t stomach anything and all I wanted was ice cream anyway and wasn’t like I had any in my freezer. I’d probably puke up any bite I took remembering Eddie’s gone.

Phone!

Ok, phone worked. It’s little light kept blinking from all the people who called me. Maybe my birth family kept calling hoping to get a word in to make sure I was still around. Probably not but I wanted to dream a little.

Message #7:

 **Bev** : RICHIE! PICK UP! PLEASE! PLEASE!

Message #6:

 **Unknown** : Hello Mr. Tozier, I’m calling to inquire ab. . .

Nope, I deleted that one before staying around to hear it out.

Message #5:

 **Chief** : Hey Richie, I know this is a hard time for you, but when you get a chance please give me and Karla a call.

Message #4:

 **Bev** : Please Richie! It’s Bev again! But as in Bev and Ben and. . .

Whatever, got it. Nope. Deleted that one, too, so I could listen to whatever other message waited.

Message #3:

 **Bev** : Um hey Richie, it’s Bev again! You know! Molly Ringwald, Bev your neighbor, Beverly Marsh who IS your friend! Please call me back when you can!

Sorry about that Bev, really.

Message #2:

 **Bev** : Hey Richie! When you get the chance please call me back. Heard you were released today.

My hand and brain decided I needed something to do because I deleted, deleted, deleted each message and decided to listen to the final message left on my phone. Good thing not a lot of interviewers called but I can’t remember if they ever really did. How long did I know? I can’t remember, I can’t remember! I can’t remember the first moment it clicked.

Eddie’s gone.

It had to be there standing in the mall worried and thinking about how Zoltar lied. Me looking across and right then and there, right then and there I saw his ghost standing in the ice cream place all splattered with green ice cream. 

Message #1:

 **Eddie** : Rich! RICHIE! Hey! It’s Eddie! _(pause)_ Shit, you probably already knew that but still, it’s Eddie. Shit! Ok! Sorry! Look, Richie! Richie. _(pause)_ So I’m here at work and I’m calling you from work and I know you might not get this in time but just in case I’m calling you right now because I was talking to Stan and Mike and Mike told me this whole story about some story and-and-and _(pauses)_ BOWERS! RICHIE! IT’S BOWERS! Your missing puzzle piece, the person working with Hockstetter has to be Bowers. _(pauses)_ Hey Chee! I fucking told you how _**we’re**_ a team, but you tried to sound all like the brave and the bold on me. Guess if I stayed with you or if we stayed at my place, which was obviously the best decision seeing that you got hit by a car by BOWERS, our EEENEMY. Life’d be better. Anyway, hurry the fuck up with whatever you’re doing and don’t go cracking any my mom jokes. I’m not in the mood. I’ll see you soon. Saved a lunch for you. _(pauses)_ Love. . .I love you. See ya around, _**Richard**_.

I almost dropped the phone cause somebody started stabbing me again and again in the chest. Good thing I didn’t ‘cause Eddie kept on talking. It’s really such bullshit, I got shot like actually fucking shot and this, everything about this (Eddie’s gone) was worse.

 **Eddie** : And I know you might not get this in time but just in case I still wanted to give it a try for two big, major reasons!

 **Eddie** : First, if you hear it after, I want you to know, I told you so. Whatever happens. No matter what. I’m right. You’re hearing it first right here at _(pause) _11:47 _(pause)_ 11:47 AM that is so don’t pretend.__

__**Eddie** : Second, is really because it’s not fair that you get to see ghosts and I don’t because if you die then I don’t get to see you again. So for real. . . _(pause)_ Just for real, be careful, please. Richie! I love you, man. I mean that, too. _(phone click)__ _


	31. Epilogue: August 15, 1996

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie makes a big choice.

# Epilogue

### August 15, 1996

Eddie’s gone but his scooter isn’t. 

I can’t believe it lasted so long, too. Got up one day and decided to follow through with some bullshit plan Eddie came up with about going to Vegas. Then there it is. (Viva Las Vegas) I can spot it from a distance while filling the tank up all over again. It helps that I didn’t have a lot to carry with me. I stand there looking out at Vegas unable to look away. Can’t believe it’s within grasp after so much nothing between my life in Derry and nowhere. 

There I am, I’m standing around with Eddie’s scooter at some nothing stop about to head toward fucking Vegas. He should’ve been there. He really should’ve been. It’d been his idea all along yet I couldn’t ever figure out the reason to why.

“Hey!” I look back as Bev leaves the little so-called store at the gas station. She holds up two beef sticks, “You hungry?” she asks me.

“Sure?”

“Either you are or you aren’t?” Poor Bev is stuck with a stuffed backpack of our shit.

“Right. Um. Hungry.”

Bev tosses one beef stick to me as she opens her then comes to stand beside me looking down at the twinkling city. “You sure about this?”

I shrug. “I don’t have a lot of choices.”

“Um, ok, but what about LA?”

Instead, I shake my head biting into the beef stick still stuck on Eddie. Just so it’s clear, I’m thinking of Eddie unrelated to the beef stick. 

“No, this-this is right. Trust me.” I say it and mean it because it’s a fact.

“So I don’t believe you, but whatever. Ready?”

“Yeah, ready. . .” 

I nod and back up and sit back onto the scooter with her on the back. Time to go. I pull out of the gas station following large signs ushering us away towards the sin city Eddie always talked about so many times for some reason. 

If he ever showed up though, he’d have a lot of fears to bring up about the different sort of sex diseases you’d get from strip clubs or about the dangers of gambling while he gambles our life savings away. Don’t know why, just peg him as a guy who’s accidentally into those slot machines.

Somehow time shortens for the first time in such a long time. Somehow we slice it in half and Las Vegas greets us for the first time ever.

My name’s Richie Tozier. You don’t need a reminder but whatever because in this age when fame is the altar at which most people worship, I’m not sure I want you to care about who I am or that I exist because my fame isn’t for the reasons I want. I wanted to be a stand-up comedian, instead, I’m the guy who stopped a mass shooting at a mall. I’m the guy who lost his boyfriend in that mall. Worse, I was born able and unable to speak to the dead. It was their fault we couldn’t speak with one another ‘cause they’re noiseless. 

Eddie and I won’t be seeing each other for some time. 

But hear me out because in theory, we won’t meet again for another sixty years because there’s a lot I need to do with the whole ghost seeing business. Meanwhile, I sure hope that I’m a patient man. 

In an ideal world, this story will end with my eventual death where I get to meet Eddie Kaspbrak again, to see his hyper annoyed face as he grumbles, “What took you so long Richie?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ANYWAY! I like tragedy, I also love It, Reddie, and Odd Thomas so this is a project close to my heart and pretty much something nobody asked for but here it is.
> 
> So please, please, please. . .if you liked any bit of this drop a comment but if you didn't, please forever hold your peace.
> 
> Huge shout out to anybody who reads this from start to finish because again this holds a special place for me so I'm glad you stuck around with me. That means a lot.
> 
> Stay safe out there!


End file.
